


Weep, Little Lion Man

by Napping



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Arguing, Eddie does never actually Hit Buck though, Established Relationship, Family, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Past Abuse, Street fighting, Therapy, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Napping/pseuds/Napping
Summary: First it’s someone who isn’t you. Maybe someone who isn’t even close to you. Then comes the irritation, the secrets, the yelling. The throwing, the screaming, the blaming. The punching of the wall where your face had been just a second ago.It always started somewhere. One time was a coincident. Maybe paranoia, maybe he was just trying to find mistakes in what made him feel happy because part of him still doubted he deserved happiness, right?But Buck had ignored his fair share of “One times” in the past few months. So what, Eddie yelled now. He freaked out now. He had secrets now. It was just that one thing.--Eddie is angry. And then some. He starts street fighting. But his anger never seems to burn out there.
Relationships: Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 262





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I normally don't like to add notes to the beginning of works but hey!! I got WARNINGS!!
> 
> Buck's and Maddie's father was abusive and while that only becomes topic in memories, I wanted to make it clear that a warning applies, if that is a trigger to you. Stay safe!!
> 
> Also - Eddie does NEVER hit Buck in this and won't in the second part either, but there are a lot of other things that go wrong.

”Hey.” Buck felt his boyfriend kick his calf, but squirmed away from it and buried himself deeper into the warmth of their blanket. There was a little smile building on his lips, though.

He grunted as Eddie rolled over to lie on top of him. ”You weigh a ton,” Buck said, not really opening his mouth. Eddie laughed silently as Buck put his arms around his back, not letting his boyfriend get off of him. He closed his eyes and rest his forehead against Eddie’s collarbones. His dog tags were warm from where they had been resting on Eddie’s chest the whole night and felt hot against the skin of Buck’s arm, where they lay now.

”You are heavier than me.” Eddie moved slightly, which felt like an attempt to shrug.

Buck snorted. ”But I am not making it a problem for your airways.”

”I could take you any day,” Eddie whispered right in his ear and then laughed again.

Buck took a deep breath. It was comfortable one, a happy one. Just a little sigh of happiness, just between the state of sleep and being awake, in their own little bubble.

Happiness was something of which Buck had been convinced just wasn’t in the stars for him. ”Man,” he said, opening his eyes and looking into Eddie’s who rest his chin on his hand on Buck’s chest. ”You make me so happy.”

Eddie’s eyes turned soft and his smile brighter. ”You make me happy, too. Even though you have the worst morning breath.”

Buck barked out a surprised laughter and shoved Eddie off of him. ”You are such an asshole, I was trying to have a moment.”

”So did I, but you were the one complaining about breathing freely,” Eddie muttered from his side of the bed where he buried his head back in his pillow.

Buck rolled over to his side, crocking his head up on his hand. ”Are you seriously going back to sleep right now?” He asked and began to play with Eddie’s hair. He’d cut it short a few months back but now it was long enough for that again.

”And if I was?” Eddie said, his voice muffled by his pillow.

Buck laughed and playfully pulled lightly on a few strands of his hair. Eddie grumbled softly but didn’t even open his eyes. ”You were the one who woke me up in the first place. You have lost your right to fall back asleep and leaving me hanging like that.”

”I can’t fall asleep if you keep pulling my hair,” Eddie yawned but pouted when Buck stopped running his hand through his hair.

”You didn’t mind the hair pulling last night,” Buck teased and sat up on the bed. He winked at his boyfriend, even though he wasn’t looking at him.

”Dirty,” Eddie deadpanned and finally opened one eye, grinning up at Buck.

Buck shrugged and got up, while pulling the blanket with him.

”Mean.”

His pants got lost somewhere but there was a grey pair of sweats that looked like they were okay enough to wear, so Buck put them on and then threw an old sock at Eddie. ”Up.”

Eddie picked the sock up and looked at Buck with tired eyes. ”Those were your socks from work yesterday. They basically consist of only sweat at this point.”

”And calluses,” Buck shrugged with a shit eating grin and then laughed over his boyfriend’s playfully exaggerated groan.

”You are disgusting.”

He threw another pair of sweats and a freshly washed shirt at Eddie’s head and then walked over to press a kiss to his forehead. ”I love you too.”

Eddie searched for the tag in the shirt and then put it on. ”Pretty sure this is yours.”

”Probably, it looks like a dress on you, little man.”

The look Eddie shot his way was so unimpressed, Buck couldn’t help but press another kiss to his forehead after he stopped laughing. ”It suits you, princess.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes and shook his head. ”You get cocky a whole lot over those few inches.”

”Saying cock and hole in one sentence? Somebody has their mind in the gutter.” Buck grinned at his boyfriend and walked over to the dresser to try and style his hair at least a little bit.

He heard Eddie sigh from behind him and couldn’t help but laugh again. ”You know there was a time, when you tried to be super romantic for me. What happened to that?”

Buck turned around and blew him a kiss. ”Nothing happened to that, I brought you flowers just yesterday.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes at him again but then couldn’t fight of the smile spreading over his face. ”That was really sweet.”

”As was your thank you,” Buck winked and zipped up his hoodie.

Eddie fell back into the pillows with a groan. ”And you dare to say it is my mind that is in the gutter.”

Buck walked over to the bed and sat down to straddle Eddie’s lap, on of his legs on each side of his hips. ”You love me.”

Eddie put his hands on Buck’s thighs and looked up at him with his dark eyes. ”Don’t you dare start anything right now, we’ve got an 8 year old about to wake up and you know it.”

He raised his hand in faux innocent and then put them atop of Eddie’s. ”I’m not starting anything.”

”Sure you’re not.”

Buck nodded and leaned down to press a quick kiss to the top of Eddie’s nose and then his lips. ”How about you go and wake up Chris and I make waffles?”

Eddie squeezed Buck’s thighs. ”Deal.” 

When Buck was younger, he felt like the whole earth was at his feet, just waiting for him to discover it. There was nothing he couldn’t do, nothing too much of a stretch, nothing that wasn’t right there in his reach.

The first time his father hit him, he didn’t even think to defend himself. He just starred at the bruise later, growing underneath his eyelid, turning from red to blue and yellow, changing a shade with every apology that fell from his father’s lips, every excuse that Buck numbly accepted. He had to accept them. There was no other way out of this. He wasn’t one of _those guys._ He didn’t want to be one of the kids who came to school with bruises that never seemed to fade away, always already replaced with a litter of new ones.

When the bruise had reached a faded red, Buck felt like all of his happiness had shriveled up and died right there with it. When his best friend had asked him about it, he had an untrue explanation on his lips ready to go, because in the end the apple really didn’t fall for from the tree, it seemed. Lying has always come easy to Buck.

The unfair thing really was, that you just never knew. You wake up one day and when you go to sleep, your whole life is changed. Eddie smiled at him, a playful little thing. Buck threw a pillow at him, and buried himself underneath the blanket again.

Buck was looking at Chris walking away with his friend, his mother right behind them, shouting a few words of goodbye in their direction.

”Hey, that’s a handicap spot!”

Buck turned around to his boyfriend, not knowing that this was one of those moments. He was having one world view now, had an overview over his life, his happiness back together. And then his life would just throw a curve ball. Turn it all around.

”Did you just insult my kid?”

For all the years he had spend calculating his father and his every move and afterwards his short training with the SEALS, you could think that he could have seen it coming. He had let his guard down, though. He had run away and somewhere along the way he had left the Buck, who was scared and always watching, always waiting, behind. He had changed. He had healed.

It was sad, came to him as an after thought, that he was finally able to see how far he’s come when it was when all his progress seemed to be burned to the ground.

Eddie’s movement was quick and fluent. Buck didn’t even know what he was seeing until the other guy hit the ground, holding his hand over his face but not well enough to hide the fact that his nose was bleeding heavily.

”Eddie!” Buck called out, causing his boyfriend to turn around to him. There was something about seeing him, knuckles slightly bloody, breathing heavy, standing over the man still on the ground that made Buck feel like he might fall to the ground as well. There was something in his head just ringing, reminding him that he had seen something like that before. This was nothing he had never been a part of.

Buck didn’t like his own reaction to it. He didn’t. He knew that Eddie’s anger always run hot, it was just how he was. But he used to have a handle on it. He knew how to control himself. He had worn anger more like an accessory, a tool that he carried with him but didn’t use if it wasn’t needed. He knew that sooner or later something just needed to be the final straw. People yelled and sometimes their emotions got the best of them. Buck knew that. Yet, his brain filed every moment of it as immediate danger.

And while he did a good job in pretending it didn’t happen and didn’t turned a few alarms on in his head, it was always somehow there in the back of his mind.

It was the only thing he could think of for the rest of the day. Just looking at Eddie, while he was walking out of the jail cell, complaining about how long it had taken the police to take care of the paper work.

The next day, Buck found himself putting the whole incident in a box in his head, trying not to let himself think about it anymore. He needed to stop being paranoid, after all. Not all people were bad people just because they had one bad day. There was no need for him to go back to see everything as a threat to himself. It had taken long to get over it and he would not allow himself to fall back to that.

On day three he had already put it so far into the back in his mind, it only blipped up a few more times.

”What was your first job then?” Chimney asked over the sound of a giggling Hen.

”I bet he brought people their newspaper like the All American Boy he is,” she laughed and pointed with her fork to Buck who sat so close to Eddie that their shoulders were touching. ”How right am I?”

Buck shrugged and raised a challenging eyebrow at her. ”Funny.”

”I bet his first job was mowing their lawn behind a white picket fence.” Chimney locked eyes with Hen as if trying to challenge her into making it into a bet, certain he’d win a few bucks.

Eddie mustered him from the side, while he was sitting close enough that Buck could feel his breath on his cheek. He turned his head quickly and pressed a short kiss to his boyfriend’s lips before he even knew what was happening. Buck giggled and ate another fork full.

”Adorably disgusting,” Hen deadpanned before she smiled again and nudged his foot with hers. ”Tell us.”

”Playing footsies with me to get an answer? While my boyfriend is right here? Bold move, Hen.” Buck winked at her, stealing Eddie’s glass and drinking the rest of his orange juice.

”Thanks,” Eddie said to that, knocking his shoulder against Buck’s. Buck grinned cheekily at his boyfriend and then turned back to Hen.

”Why do you wanna know so badly?” He asked her, still keeping a playful undertone.

She shrugged and ate another forkful. ”I don’t know, just trying to find new things to tease you with, I guess. Were you a waiter? Making easy tips off of girls with crushes on you?”

”My teenage self wishes he’d look good enough to get money for it,” Buck huffed out a laugh. He didn’t tell her that he always tried to not get too close to others in his teens. Too many secrets that might get uncovered, things he couldn’t have anybody know. As if other people would just smell it on him the second he got too close. Hear it, maybe. His secrets so loud, evidences so obvious, all it took would be to lean in and listen.

”Yeah, I am sure you looked just monstrous,” Chimney said unimpressed. ”Eyes a little too blue? Hair a bit too full?”

Buck thought about the scars littering his body. They weren’t that obvious, but as soon as you knew to look, you’d notice. They seemed like a walk through a forest, where one would see a spider on the ground and suddenly everything was crawling with bugs. It was all a matter of what you were looking for. Once you took a closer look, they never seemed to stop. Buck found himself more and more glad that nobody seemed to just look close enough.

Buck laughed. ”Sure, Chim.”

”Okay, this is ridiculous.” Hen rolled her eyes and pointed her fork at Eddie this time. ”You have got to know. Tell us and we’ll pay for your son’s entire birthday party.”

”He started to help out in a kitchen when he was 12,” Eddie said without missing a beat and then put his arm around Buck’s shoulder when he tried to move away in faux offence.

”Excuse me,” Buck whined playfully, knowing if he sold all of it like a good old memory, he might get away with it. ”I was 13 and technically I was a dish washer before I was allowed to touch anything eatable in the kitchen.”

Hen and Chimney gaped at each other before turning back to him. ”13? What does a 13 year old need such a job for?”

Buck shrugged cluelessly as if he had forgotten what the reason had been. He knew it still, though. If he thought about it hard enough, he was sure he could still feel the plain and raw desperation he did when he was 13 and just needed a _fail safe._ A promise. Something that was his and could catch him if push came to shove and he had to leave immediately. ”What 13 year old doesn’t need money? It was an easy enough job.”

Hen nodded in understanding. ”So, what are the most important things you’ve learned there?”

Buck leaned his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder, rubbing his chin in thought. ”Nobody cares about what the dish washer does, how to peal 6 pounds of hot potatoes in only a few minutes and also when you cook a goose don’t leave its liver inside or it’ll all taste bitter. Oh, and the oil in a fryer is hot as all hell and makes your skin feel like it burns for days.”

Chimney gaped at him like he has never seen him before. ”Did you wear an apron and if yes, is there anyway that there is a picture of it somewhere?”

Buck knew there were at least two pictures. One, when he had manages to lose his grip on a pot filled with water, getting it all over his blue jeans. Maddie had laughed so hard while taking the picture, it was slightly shaky and blurry.

There was another one, too. One his co worker had teased him with right after taking it because Buck had looked like _an actual dead body_ in the background. The dark orange light of the kitchen had made the bruises around his eyes and on his noise stand out in an unnatural color, made even worse paired with the shadows that fell over his face. Sometimes he thought back to that picture. Thought about how his colleagues hadn’t put one and one together there and asking himself whether he was glad about that or not. If he should be grateful that they didn’t seem to connect anything, his constant flinching and his bruises and his age and came to the only result that made sense.

Sometimes he wondered if they could have helped him. He wondered how much more it would have taken for them to just _see._ Maybe if he had taken his shirt off too, shown his darker bruises there because his father had been smart enough to not make it _too_ obvious, maybe then they would have finally been able to see it all for what it really was.

”I know that I told Maddie to get rid of it,” Buck smiled at Chimney teasingly.

”I’ll find it,” he said more to Hen than to Buck and got up, his phone already in his hand.

”So, Chimney asked me for a picture of you in an apron?” Maddie put a cup of tea in front of Buck and then sat down on the love chair opposite to him.

Buck raised an eyebrow at the tea. Maddie has been trying to get him to drink more of it, no matter how often Buck tried to explain to her that he didn’t want to. It was one of his Weirdly Strong Opinion Points, as Eddie called them.

Eddie could go from 0 to a full 100% aggressive discussion about tooth paste in a second. There was one brand that was _Just better, Buck._

That was what tea was for Buck. The way it smelled so delicious and you’d settle down to enjoy a cup of tea and no matter how good the tea was, it never lived up to its smell.

Buck smiled at his sister but then opened his mouth to let her know yet again that he just wasn’t a fan of her tea. She silence him with a look that said much more than he could argue in a discussion if he started one so he just closed his mouth again.

”I don’t even know where that picture has gone, do you have any idea?” She asked, brushing a lint off of her dark red blouse.

Buck shrugged. He had the feeling the picture must be in some box or another in their parent’s house so it might as well be on the moon or in another galaxy. ”Home?” He asked, knowing that it wasn’t that for either of them.

They both have found their homes right here. Maddie grimaced and shook her head at him. ”I could have sworn I took it with me when I moved out.”

Buck sure hoped that she hadn’t. ”Well, it’ll turn up if you have. But let’s hope that it’s one of those things we’ll never see again”

Maddie snorted and leaned forward to push his cup a bit closer to him passive aggressively. ”It’s my favourite picture of you. I knew I should have had it framed the second I took it.”

”Dad would have hated it,” Buck said back lightly. He lowered his voice, trying to sound like their father, but didn’t put the same edge in his words. ” _Evan, can’t you do anything without making a mess?”_

Maddie frowned, not laughing at his supposed joke. ”Well, look what a mess he made of his whole family.”

She shook her head and then pushed his cup right into his hands. She was trying to take care of him, he knew. She needed to just do something, sometimes, just to know that she was still trying. That she was still able to look out for others. That she wasn’t lost in her own mind, like their mother had been.

”Hey,” Buck said and put a hand on her arm. ”I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have started to talk about him.”

Maddie closed her eyes for a second and then looked back up at him. ”I would love to see that picture again. You grew up so much, so fast.”

Buck snorted and took a sip of his tea. ”Never missing that acne.”

Maddie shook her head and leaned back in her seat, silently agreeing with him to just change the topic without talking about their parents again. There wasn’t much to talk about, not for her anyway. She still looked rueful when she said her next words, though. Just because she didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t mean that she didn’t see the need to do so. Buck read it in her sad eyes, an old pain now again renewed.

”You didn’t grow out of that, Buck. You just started eating other things than junk food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Buck remembered his microwaved food. His cereal as dinner for days. Stealing bits of food in the kitchen at work. He shrugged with an easy smile. ”I am cooking for a child now, Maddie. You should see me, I am making salads and everything.”

He hoped it’d make her smile at the very least. He knew he should never have started with the topic of their father, but it was like he just _needed_ to say a few things. It only occurred to him a few days later that it was probably because the second Eddie’s fist had connected with that guy’s cheekbone in the parking lot, he had shaken a few forgotten memories loose.

Maddie didn’t smile, not happily anyway. Her eyes just filled with more sadness as the corners of her mouth raised in a bitter manner. ”That’s what you were. Just a child.”

Buck searched his whole apartment up and down, looked in every drawer and box and corner. At the bottom of his closet, beneath a few old weights and a blanket that consisted more of holes than actual fabric and had more than a few mysterious stains, he found a little photo album.

When he handed Maddie the picture, she doubled over, laughing. Chimney and Hen printed out a poster version and pinned it in their locker room. Buck couldn’t quite fight a smile seeing his family this amused by something.

Buck’s smiles never lasted long, though. There was always a reason for them to fade away as if they had never even existed in the first place. 

Eddie was tense. Buck hadn’t even rendered anything of that day as too exhausting or something to lose his temper over, he just sat down with a cup of coffee, surprised to look up and see Eddie all but seething. It wasn’t quite anger, not yet, but there was a red flush on his cheekbones and a muscle in his jaw jumped.

Buck’d seen that look on Eddie before, not that long ago. He had learned his lesson that day.

”Hey,” Buck said softly, his coffee forgotten. ”Eddie, are you okay?”

Soft voice. No sudden movements. Every tiny shift in Eddie’s expression was essential.

”Yes,” Eddie gritted out through tightly clenched teeth. His breaths were deep but quick. Buck really wondered how he had missed that before. ”Just fine.”

That was a lie so obvious, Buck wondered why Eddie had even bothered with it, clearly not fooling either of them.

”Eddie, talk to me,” Buck pushed, still in a low and even voice. It was normal for people to get frustrated sometimes and he knew that. But he had never seen Eddie quite this angry. Not in that way away. In this silent way, in which he just stood there and starred while his whole body made the impression as if it was about to explode.

Eddie wore his anger openly, right on his sleeve. He had a little bit of a temper, he told people when he was irritated by things. It was just what he did. But Buck had never seen him being silently mad.

Buck knew silent anger. He knew it too well. He also knew that no matter what, this anger needed a fuse, a vent. Silent anger kept in was never pretty.

”It’s nothing,” Eddie bit out and put his hands on the kitchen counter. There was more force behind it than needed to be, his hands landing on the surface with a clapping sound. Buck blinked at his boyfriend and then got up slowly, walking up to him.

”It’s just me here, Eddie, there is nothing you can’t tell me,” Buck reassured and put a hand between Eddie’s shoulder blades. He swore he could feel Eddie’s rapidly beating heart beneath his fingers.

”It’s just stupid.” Eddie closed his eyes the second Buck had started to touch him. He leaned into the touch slightly and Buck began to move his hand in little circles.

”We can figure it out.” Buck put his other hand atop of Eddie’s on the kitchen counter.

Eddie blew a breath out and half turned to lean his head on Buck’s shoulder. ”I forgot to fill out the paper work and now I might not get out of my shift on Chris’s birthday. He’ll be so disappointed, Buck."

Buck pulled his boyfriend in a hug, never stopping to rub his back. ”Have you talked to Bobby about it? Don’t you have a lot of furlough days left over from last year? You could ask for only half a shift instead, pick Chris up after school? I don’t have shift that day, if you really can’t get out of it at all, we can switch, I can cover for you.”

Eddie raised his head and looked into Buck’s eyes, frowning as if he was deep in thought. ”I love you.”

Buck huffed out a surprised laugh and pressed a kiss atop of Eddie’s head. ”I love you too. We’ll figure this out.”

And they did. Bobby didn’t even view it as a problem at all to find fill in for Eddie on Chris’s birthday.

Chris was too excited to sleep for the whole week leading to his birthday. He was up more early than normally and Buck and Eddie agreed that they needed more coffee in the house if they wanted to somehow survive that time. They laughed. They were a team.

Chris’s smile was bright and his happiness so obvious that Buck swore he could feel it too. It might only be his own, though. He opened his presents and ate the cinnamon rolls Chimney and Maddie baked for him. Buck looked around his little family and smiled just as brightly.

Eddie’s silent anger, his tensed face, the sound it made when his hands met the counter have long since disappeared from Buck’s mind. People got mad, it happened.

”You said you wanted to learn how to make cinnamon rolls.” Maddie reminded him when Buck looked at the ingredients on the counter in distaste.

”I meant, more like in general,” Buck explained and picked up a package of vanilla pudding. ”You know how bad I am at baking things.”

Maddie rolled her eyes and motioned for him to give the pudding back. ”You are a trained firefighter, you will be fine.”

”I don’t know how this is supposed to help me bake.” Buck watched as his sister put a pot on the stove and filled it with milk. 

”It can help you when you screw up enough and light the kitchen on fire again,” Maddie laughed.

If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he swore he could still smell the burned kitchen towel. He was glad that Maddie viewed it as a memory they could laugh about. Maybe he should, too. It had been so long ago. It was her luck, she’d only come home after their father had seen the mess Buck had made, she missed the aftermath of it all. The bruises on his sides and back needed more than 2 weeks to fade fully.

”That was an accident,” Buck defended and eyed the rest of the ingredients. ”Do we really need that much —”

”Yes,” Maddie interrupted and pointed at the boiling milk. ”Put the pudding in there and never stop steering. I’ll get the butter.”

Buck stirred while being only a little bit lost in thoughts. He had spent a lot of time to get over his childhood and he also thought he was doing a pretty good job. But there were things that just came up again and again as if he just couldn’t stop to connect certain things with his father.

He still had his claws in so deep. Even though he had already ruined so many things for him.

Maddie ran around the kitchen like the sheer definition of a busy working bee, while he just stood still and stirred. He listened to her talk about the weird calls she had at work today and about how Josh will be going in a date later this week. He nodded and tried to cheer up, his father had ruined so much for him, he wouldn’t give him that power anymore.

They waited an hour for the dough to rise. Buck was nursing his second beer, still not quite knowing how he had even ended up here.

”Okay, now we just need to roll it out, add the cinnamon and brown sugar and then bake them. See? It’s really easy.”

Buck starred in disbelief at the back of her head, but then nodded with a smile when she turned around. ”Sure, easy.”

”All you did was steer, Buck. I didn’t give you the chance to think of any of this as complicated,” Maddie laughed and shook her head at her brother. Then she turned to the side, her eyes wandering over the ingredients. ”Okay, we need to put flour on the counter so the dough doesn’t stick to it.”

Buck snatched the flour out of her hands and held it far up into the air. ”We need to do _what?”_

Maddie rolled her eyes, raising her arm to try and get the package back but seeing quickly that there was no way she could. Buck couldn’t help the teasing grin that grew on his face at the reminder of how much taller than his big sister he was.

”Evan, come on,” she said and sighed, but smiled back. ”We need to put flour on the counter.”

Buck shook his head and pointed on the clean counter top of Eddie’s kitchen. ”You cannot pour that much flour on there and expect my boyfriend to keep loving me.”

Maddie rolled her eyes again and shoved him lightly. ”We can clean it up. Also, Eddie looks at you like the sun shines out of your ass, so don’t even act like that is the problem. You are just too lazy to clean up and you know it.”

”Just because he loves me doesn’t mean he won’t be annoyed by this.” Buck shrugged and narrowed his eyes at his sister. ”And you promise to clean it up?”

Maddie looked confused for a second, as if she was trying to figure out if she should say whatever it was that had just found its way to the tip of her tongue. But then she blinked and just said: ” _We_ can clean it up.”

”You really aren’t ready for compromises, Maddie. How rude,” he teased but handed the flour back to her.

Maddie rolled her eyes a third time and then poured the flour on the counter. ”Keep talking like that and I’ll just leave and abandon you with all this mess.”

And seriously it really wasn’t even on his radar anymore. So what, Eddie was a bit more jumpy now? A little tenser? A little more likely to get mad over things? It was normal.

And it was.

It was all in the extent of something that Buck could excuse. Eddie would get a little irritated and they would find a solution together. They would talk it out. They handled it. Buck didn’t even put the incidents together as a pattern or connected them. People went through phases and as long as it was fixable, he would do exactly that. As long as they were a team, there was nothing they couldn’t get through.

But of course, there had to be another shoe to drop. It was never enough to just go through a rough patch, it just had to get rougher. Of course it did. It was his life after all and when would he just get something good and then get to keep it?

Buck’s eye twitched while he starred at his boyfriend. Eddie was standing on the other side of the coffee table while Buck was still sitting on the couch. He wished he’d have gotten up but he felt as if Eddie would read it as an attack.

So he sat there. Starred at his boyfriend rambling, pacing and then stopping in front of him. Buck even knew that logically, Eddie was in the right here. He had every right to be mad and Buck saw that. He knew that.

But -

But.

But Eddie yelled. Buck starred at him dumbly for a second, taken aback. He had made it an unconscious trait to never yell in arguments. There was no need for it. Eddie didn’t do that either. Buck would have noticed, surely. But there he was, raising his voice like he the louder he was, the more likely he was to win their argument.

An argument that shouldn’t even be about winning. Buck frowned and looked into his boyfriend’s eyes.

”You don’t need to yell.”

Buck felt really small for the his height right now. Suddenly, he was 10 years old again and has just knocked over one of his mother’s glass sculptures which stood in every corner of the house. They had been waiting for something like this to happen, he knew it. It was a dolphin jumping out of a big wave that stood in the corner between the doors to the kitchen and living room. He didn’t even know that he had touched it until it fell to the ground with a deafening loud sound, glass shattering everywhere. He had panicked, tried to somehow save this. He had spent what felt like hours, trying to pick up all the pieces, his hands bloody by the time he realised that he had no way out of this. Even if he could make the pieces disappear, his father would notice the empty space. It occurred to Buck later, that he probably wouldn’t have. He never payed attention unless he could benefit from it. Back then he’d taken one look at the shatters on the floor and yelled at Buck, who sat in-between them all, cheeks burning red with shame.

 _”You know what you’ve done, Evan? You’re always so reckless. You mother loved that bear.”_ It was right then that Buck had noticed for the first time that it wasn’t even about what he did. His father was just angry because he was. He was an angry man and Buck was an easy target. _”It was a dolphin.”_ Had been what he shouldn’t have dared to say. He learned that sometimes, his silence was a safety net for him. Sometimes it was better not to argue, it was better never to argue with people who were only mad for the sake of being mad.

”Don’t I?” Eddie asked in faux bewilderment. ”Because I have the feeling you are actively not listening to me.”

Buck crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at his boyfriend. There was that angry red flush covering his cheeks and floating down his neck again. It was a nice color on him. Dangerous, though, maybe. ”That is a lie. I hear you just fine. When did I not listen to you?”

Eddie scoffed, eyes hard. ”How about when you didn’t listen to Bobby when he said we had to evacuate immediately?”

Buck blinked at him again. _That_ was what this was about?”I saw a victim right in front of me. I requested another minute and Bobby authorized it.”

The things was, Buck knew what it was like to worry. He’s seen Eddie in more dangerous situations than he was willing to count. He’d stood by, not daring to even take a breath, thinking _Oh, this is it. The moment neither of us will come out of._ But he also knew that that was the life that they both have chosen.

And there was also the fact that he was in the right here, too.

”But it was not okay!” Eddie yelled, because apparently he did that now. Buck tried not to let his confusion about it show. This didn’t seem like the kind of fight that should end in a screaming match. This was not the kind of things that should be a fight to begin with. Buck tried and failed to see the reason behind Eddie worrying the same way he seemed to do everything now: aggressive.

”I requested extra time and our Captain, who’s had time to evaluate the situation, said it was okay.” Buck shrugged, trying to look indifferent. ”Sounds okay to me.”

Eddie took a deep breath. There was a little break before he answered, and Buck knew better than to trust silence. ”You should have see the smoke outside of the building. It was pitch black. That place was about to blow and you knew it.”

Buck had known it. Of course he did. But that has never been the question here. ”The woman was right in front of me, all I needed were an extra 30 seconds.”

His boyfriend slowly raised his eyebrows and starred Buck down. His breathing was so deep, Buck found himself wondering if the man in front of him may actually be about to spit fire. ”Maybe you should think about your own safety, too. 30 seconds is a long time to stay inside a death trap.”

He stood up slowly before answering, resisting the urge to raise his hands in surrender. ”Eddie, I did think about that. But I also know what I can do. I knew that I could make it out.”

Eddie shook his head but didn’t move back when Buck walked up to him and put a calming hand on his elbow. ”You can’t know things like that, Buck,” he said, softly. It was such a huge difference to the Eddie who had just been yelling at him, as if he really was considering to bite Buck’s head off if he’d gotten close enough.

”There isn’t a scratch on me, Eddie. I am okay. I made it out just fine, it all worked out.” Buck locked eyes with Eddie, in which the anger made space for the worry that had lingered underneath.

Eddie stepped closer to Buck and buried his face in his shoulder. ”I was scared for you.”

Buck put his hands around Eddie’s back and held him close. Today had been an exhausting day for both of them, it was only human that their nerves lay a little open and raw. There was nothing more going on.

”I know. Me too. But we’ll figure it out, okay? We are okay.”

It didn’t get better from that on, but Buck couldn’t say that he was surprised. Of course it didn’t. Though, he had never imagined that it would get this bad so quickly. He felt like that was the sad truth behind many things. The worst things sneaked up and attacked you with full force before you could even comprehend what was happening.

But Buck didn’t want to think about that. There was another explanation. There was a way out. As long as he didn’t let himself put a name to it all, an idea to what all of it was, there was a chance that it’d just get better on its own. A chance that there had never been anything to name. The possibility that there hadn’t been anything wrong to begin with.

”Could you call when you’ll be running late?” Eddie asked, his words sounding nice but his voice was so cold it didn’t even seem to fit to them all. Buck frowned and then nodded.

”I told you, don’t buy the sugary cereal. Damnit, Buck.” He didn’t quite yell. It was just a bit more forceful and loud than it necessarily needed to be. Buck didn’t even try to explain that he bought it for Chimney, who had asked him to get it and bring it over later.

”How often did I fucking tell you not to put your shoes in the middle of the way? Jesus Christ, Buck.” Eddie disappeared upstairs, slamming his door shut before Buck could even open his mouth to say anything.

And Buck, he smiled through it. Because as long as he didn’t allow himself to think of anything as wrong, it wasn’t. As long as he viewed it all as normal, it would continue to be just that.

It was Maddie who got him to think about it after all. Of course it was her. She’d aways been good at getting him to actually do the things he was just putting off. It was what he did. It was what he needed to do. He needed to grab the little hope he had left with both hands and make sure that it wouldn’t escape him. Everything was still perfect and more than he could have ever dreamed of having, as long as he kept seeing it as such. Relationships were a process. There were ups and downs and it was okay.

Everything was okay.

”How are things with you and Eddie?” Maddie asked over the rim of her cup, another steaming one standing in front of Buck, but he did nothing but watch it.

”Good,” he said without thinking and then blinked. It had been his answer for the question ever since they had gotten together. It had been going well. There were a few better and a few worse times but overall it had always been going well.

Now, though, just after he’s said it, he got the sour feeling in the pit of his stomach he always got when he was lying. The little voice telling him that it never ended with one lie, reminding him that once he started he may never stop again.

Maddie smiled and nodded. She had no reason to believe otherwise. Buck had no idea if there even was something he should tell her. It felt so insignificant. There was nothing important going on, just a little low point. They would be fine in no time.

”We fight sometimes,” he said after a beat, just testing the waters. His brain was pressuring him to think about it all, to see a pattern, to find their demons and hunt them. He just needed to know if he was overreacting.

”Everybody fights sometimes.” Maddie had a small, soft smile around her lips. It comforted him. It was the same smile she had given him whenever she said that their father would get better again. That they would be a family again and if not, then they still had each other and nobody could ever change that.

Buck nodded. He knew that. On the inside he was patting his shoulders, _11/10, Buck, look at you, knowing that not everything can be perfect all the time._ But there was part of him that knew that he was still not being honest, though. He wasn’t lying, per se, but he wasn’t telling her the full truth either.

The ugly truth, clawing its way into Buck’s happiness and pulling while he tried to somehow hold onto it. And so he smiled, and never stopped smiling. He smiled when Eddie yelled again and then apologised hurriedly. He smiled when Eddie didn’t even greet him before screaming about another thing. He smiled when Eddie was looking at his phone, not telling Buck who he was texting. He smiled instead of saying that he knew that there was a difference between fighting and getting yelled at.

Because it could be so much worse. People had worse every day. _He_ had seen what worse looked like and it wasn’t this.

”I can’t remember the last conversation we’ve had in which he didn’t end up getting mad about something,” Buck said through his teeth as if he didn’t even want to say it at all. Part of him didn’t. This was no information that should be out in the open. It was a little low point in their relationship. It wasn’t anything that was going to make or break anything.

Maddie put her cup down and looked at him. There was no smile on her face anymore, she just looked confused and worried. ”When has that started?”

Buck shrugged. He was good at playing it off, he knew that. If he tried hard enough, he could look like all of this has never stolen a second of his sleep. ”A few weeks ago. He is just under a lot of stress.”

Maddie leaned forward and put a comforting hand on his arm. ”Is he really or are you making excuses for him?”

His sister had always been the smarter one out of the two of them. She had also always been able to look through everything he was trying to play off as totally okay.

Maybe it was because she had been older than him when their father had started to act out. She had been old enough to hear their mother’s _He is overworked right now, he just needs a little bit of quiet, he means well_ for what they really were. Excuses. Desperate attempts to find another explanation.

But this wasn’t it. Buck knew it wasn’t. He had promised himself he would never let anything get this bad again and that wasn’t even close to it.

”Honestly?” He asked as a little, desperate laugh escaped him. There was too much for him fighting its way to the surface, too much he has been trying to keep down for weeks. But maybe there was just a moment when he had to learn that it wasn’t a weakness or his own personal failure to admit that things are not okay. That he had somehow managed to come this close to lose something good in his life yet again. ”I don’t know. But it’s also not an excuse. It is basically nothing. I know what it is like, and this is not it.”

Maddie nodded. ”Okay.”

”It’s not.” Buck repeated. He couldn’t leave his sister’s house and have her believe that Eddie was anything even close to their father. Eddie was sweet. He was everything Buck has ever wanted and there was no way he was going to lose it. There was no reason for it. 

Maddie nodded again but with slightly more narrowed eyes. ”I believe you."

He realised later that he didn’t lose the uneasy feeling because he was the one not believing it.

When Buck was 14, his father left for a while. His mother has never told him where he really was, she just said that he had been running an errand. Buck had never asked what it really was.

When Buck grew older he began to understand what his father had probably been up to. He had no details or evidences but he knew. His father must have been with another woman. Buck didn’t know how or why and why he came back, but there was only that one explanation. Part of him wanted to ask but, he knew he wouldn’t get an answer and the only thing that’d happen would be his mother feeling bad.

She already always looked sad. But only when she thought that nobody was looking, else there was a cold indifference on her face as if the world could burn to ash around her and you could be lucky if she as much as shrugged in acknowledgement.

She hasn’t always been like that. Not always so far away. Buck remembered pictures of her smiling or making grimaces to the camera. He’d spent so much time staring at the different pictures, always ending up confused when his eyes found his mother again. It was as if along the way, she had lost everything about her that made her herself and was now just there to be there. Just there to stand by and look. Smile in the most empty way Buck had ever seen. _I’d never leave you_ , she promised, not knowing that she had already broken that long ago.

She was nothing more than a shadow that lived in their house after a while. Buck hated to admit that it was what he always feared most. He hated the way his father had destroyed their family and he hated the pain he caused but nothing filled him with such heavy, ice cold fear as the thought that maybe he’d end up just like his mother one day. Some day he would just get lost in his mind, never quite finding his way out of it again.

His father was running an errand for over two months. Those had been the best months in a long time. Maybe the best ones in his whole teenage years when he really thought about it. For a moment, they all found themselves again. They laughed together. They were a family again. He learned that his mother had deep dimples whenever she laughed. Her eyes shining in the same bright blue as his. She was just so _alive_ for a minute there, Buck felt like maybe he could forget that there had ever been a time when it wasn’t like that.

Her eyes burned out like a dying star when the door fell shut behind her husband. The door closed with a loud and angry sound, something that seemed to echo in Buck’s head with an undeniable certainty, a horrifying one. There was something final about it. And just like that, it was as if all their happiness has left their family yet again, this time to never return again. And his mother, always there, always watching but never reacting. Never _really_ there. Never again.

”Who are you texting?” Buck asked casually, chewing a bite of grilled cheese. He hadn’t even meant to start anything, but he should have known that he would. These days it always seemed to be enough for him to just open his mouth and Eddie would find a reason to be mad.

Still, he meant no harm. He was just curious and not thinking. It was a normal enough thing to ask his boyfriend.

Eddie didn’t even look up, he just starred at his phone a second longer and then put it to on the table, screen facing down, and picked up his own grilled cheese. ”Nobody.”

Buck laughed softly and shook his head. It was a quiet before the storm but Buck had never been good at reading the signs nature threw his way. He put his hand on Eddie’s arm and squeezed teasingly. “Wanna try that again?”

”What the hell, Evan?” Eddie bit out and put his grilled cheese down. He looked up, eyebrows drawn together. His anger wasn’t silent anymore. It always seemed to be written on his face now, plain as day, just waiting for a reason to be let out. Buck would love to argue that he had not given him one, but he knew better. ”Get off my back.”

Buck put his food down too. ”Eddie, who?” The easiness was gone from his voice. There was an edge to it now. This was not a casual conversation anymore and getting an answer wasn’t optional. He wanted to know.

Just because he knew better, didn’t mean he couldn’t have an argument. Buck narrowed his eyes.

Eddie raised his cup to his lips and drank a sip as if he was the personification of calmness. Buck blinked at him confusedly. _Provocation_ , his brain provided for him. Eddie was trying to get Buck’s blood running hot. He was challenging him. ”What? You don’t trust me anymore?”

Buck felt the need to look around their kitchen to find clues. Find when exactly his innocent question has turned into this. When he looked back to Eddie, he found his boyfriend starring him down. ”What does that have to do with anything?”

Eddie scoffed and narrowed his eyes. ”It has everything to do with it. What are you suggesting right now?”

He would really love to know when he had lost the control over this conversation. If this had ever been a conversation to begin with. It had turned into a fight so quickly, Buck was as confused as he was feeling like he should be hurt. What had been the _reason?_

Buck let go of Eddie’s arm like it had burned him. For a second he had forgotten he had put it there to begin with. ”Suggesting? I merely asked who that was, blowing up your phone, Eddie.”

They looked at each other for a second until Buck pointed in the direction of Eddie’s vibrating phone. ”Who?” He asked again, voice sharp. The innocence was gone from his question. He didn’t think Eddie was cheating on him, not at all, but he knew that there could be a lot of bad things going on behind secretive behavior. Secrets always came with a prize and it was never pretty.

Eddie’s next movement was so quick, Buck couldn’t even quite follow it. Eddie put his cup down with so much force, Buck was honestly surprised that it didn’t break with the sheer aggression behind it. It was over so quickly, he felt like he heard the noise of Eddie’s cup hitting the counter before he even grasped what had happened.

Then, he found himself just starring at it. It seemed like he couldn’t keep his eyes off the spot where it had met the counter. He felt like, if he just looked long enough, he could see it in pieces. If he concentrated, he could count the little shatters, could see where the cup would fall apart. It was just a matter of time.

Starring and starring and then there was it again. The same low feeling he’s had in the pit of his stomach when Eddie had hit the guy in the parking lot. It has been some time since he thought of that. He frowned, trying to figure out why his brain had provided him with that memory. It was so long ago.

”Forget about it,” Eddie bit out and before Buck could ask what the hell just happened, Eddie was out of the door, slamming it shut behind him. And while, logically Buck knew that Eddie would be back within a few hours, the slam of the door somehow carried that same finality with it that Buck knew so well. Part of him felt like maybe Eddie wouldn’t come back for a few months, too. Would stay away and only come back when things had turned better again.

Eddie came back in the middle of the night, limping. Buck acted like he had fallen asleep on the couch while waiting for him to return. Eddie planted a little kiss on Buck’s forehead and pulled a blanket over both their shoulders as he lay down next to him.

The next morning Buck woke up to the smell of pancakes and Eddie smiling while pressing a soft, emotional kiss to his lips. Buck could read the apology for what it was, but the little feeling, heavy in his guts, never stopped to remind him of what happened. There was something new now, in the back of his mind.

A little voice, advising him to not take the challenges that Eddie seemed to throw Buck’s way. Because maybe they weren’t meant as a competition, maybe they were a warning. And Buck knew better than to ignore warnings.

”And?” Maddie asked. He knew what she really meant. She wanted to know if he and Eddie had worked it out or if the tired shadows painting his eyes, so dark it seemed as if he was getting paid to lose sleep, were evidence that it hadn’t.

It didn’t, it was getting worse day by day until Eddie felt bad and everything went back to normal for one day before the getting worse started again.

”Eh,” Buck sighed and then made an opening gesture with hands, hoping that Maddie would read the answer she wanted to hear out of it. ”You know.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes because she had been raised as efficiently as he had and if there has ever been one thing that was hard, it was to fool a Buckley. ”You want to elaborate on that?”

It wasn’t a demand as much as it was an offer. She wanted to help but at this point, Buck didn’t even know what help would look like. There was not a problem, not really. There were a few low, a lot of confusing points but there was no reason to pull the trigger on something.

He smiled at her and she smiled back, always pretending he wasn’t lying. It took another second of long silence for him to find words to say that felt safe. Words that didn’t give away too much of his confusion and hurt because nobody should know that maybe there was no reason for him to be confused or in pain to begin with. As far as he was concerned, this could still be him, trying to sabotage himself.

”Are you watching out for yourself?” Maddie asked, sounding casual. He knew that the question was everything but, but he appreciated that Maddie still decided to ask it like it was. It made him feel less like he was being analysed and examined with a microscope, less like he was yet again judged and found wanting.

”I am a big boy,” Buck answered easily. ”I can act like the full grown adult I like to pretend that I am not.”

If Maddie noticed that he had not answered the question head on, yet again, she didn’t let it show. She was a Buckley after all. They both learned early on that some things are better just left unsaid. Some things you just don’t want to know the answer to. Some things like the truth that Buck has never put himself first and he would not start to do so now.

He has learned to lie when he was really young. It was something he did at home to stay safe and then outside of it so nobody would know what really was happening in his family. It were little things at first.

 _I understand,_ when his father was lecturing him on something that made no sense at all.

 _I am sorry_ , for any and everything, and most of the time for things that were in no shape, way or form his fault.

 _I fell down the stairs,_ he’d say, bashful smile on his lips, the one that he knew could charm people into believing everything he said. _Always so clumsy._

Buck knew how to sell what he said. He knew that people believed what they wanted to believe and he knew how to bend that to his own benefit. With time, he turned it into a game. Secretly, it was an exercise for him. The better he was at lying, the more likely he was to get away with it. Somebody asked him something, no matter about what and Buck would try and sell the most outrageous, outlandish lie he could come up with on the spot. They were huge, whole stories with background and evidences, all linked to events today, proof he was carrying with him.

He’d stopped that when he realised how bad lying made him feel. It gave him a sour burn underneath his skin like he was being unfair. People trusted him and he never wanted to be an unreliable person. He didn’t want to be someone who people always felt vary talking to.

That didn’t mean that he stopped lying to himself, though. And if he sat down and actually thought about it all, he would realise that that was exactly what he did.

Eddie’s knuckles were smeared with blood. Buck didn’t know if he should hope that it was his own or another person’s.

It was so late, Buck was already wearing boxers and an old shirt, now regretting to not have waited with changing until Eddie came back. It all felt so vulnerable, as if his peaceful pjs shouldn’t even be close to all of this mess.

”You didn’t do the dishes.” Eddie got to the sink and poured water into a glass. He did it with a calmness that made Buck want to scream in frustration. There was so much wrong here and the dishes really were so far down the list, they didn’t even seem to matter at all.

”Eddie, what the hell,” Buck breathed out and crossed his arms over his chest. He had no idea what to do. He sometimes wondered how his mother reacted, all those years ago when Buck got woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of their door slamming shut, his father coming home late at night. He’s only heard them yelling in an argument once, but after that, all that followed the slamming of the door was silence. He wondered if she had maybe just looked at her husband in complete silence, trying to understand him. Maybe she had just totally given up, though. Maybe she hadn’t even tried to talk to him anymore.

Eddie took a sip and then looked at him with raised eyebrows. ”What?”

Buck blinked at him. His hands were trembling, maybe from anger or from the sheer endless frustration that came from trying to argue with Eddie right now, when he was just trying to misunderstand every word Buck said. Or maybe it was because of the unfairness of it all, the injustice that yet again, Buck found himself looking at what had made him happy once and not didn’t recognize it.

”What?” Buck said through bitten teeth. _Not fair_ , his mind screamed, louder and louder, _nothing about this was fair. ”_ Eddie, what _even_?”

Maybe it was Eddie’s calmness that made it all a little harder on Buck. The fact that he seemed to be the only one here who had reason to be concern. Or the way it made him feel; like Eddie was just trying to play with him.

”I was just out with a friend, Buck.” Eddie had the nerve to _shrug_.

”It is 3 in the morning, Eddie. No message, no call, what am I supposed to do with that?”

Eddie’s expression didn’t change. It was the way it stayed the exact same that made Buck aware of the fact that he also looked angry, not as obvious as the past few weeks, but it was there. Like he had spend the whole night cooling off but it never quite set in. His blood was still running just a little bit too hot.

”I didn’t know I had to ask for your permission to go out.” _Unfair_. There was something so unfair about his words, the way he delivered them, the indifference, the way he would have freaked out if their places were reversed. Buck thought for a second he would actually just start to tear up in frustration.

”I have every right to be worried,” Buck said. He moved his eyes away from Eddie’s and starred at the dishes. It really had been his turn to do them. His little family had been eating lasagna just a few hours ago, but it felt like a scene from a whole other timeline, another universe. Unreal in a way that it just shouldn’t be. ”Just look at your knuckles. Do you think I don’t see that?”

He wished that his boyfriend could see how important that was because there was part of Buck, a part that he tried to not let show and not think about, that was scared. Scared because he knew what these knuckles meant. He’d seen it often enough. It was what his father’s ones looked like whenever Buck had screwed up too much, _again_. He knew what must have happened before that and knowing that Eddie had caused it? It terrified a part of Buck that he didn’t want to listen to, but was getting harder to ignore. He hated to find that he was actually scared.

Eddie rolled his eyes. Maddie did that a lot, too, but she always did it in a fond way. Smiling softly. Eddie looked actually annoyed as if Buck was the one in the wrong. As if he was being dramatic for no reason at all. ”It’s nothing.”

Buck gaped at him, eyes snapping back to his. ”Are you actually kidding me? Eddie, these kinds of wounds don’t just _happen_. What did you do?”

”Like I said,” his voice was rising again, Buck wasn’t even surprised by it. He had been so bewildered by it just a few weeks ago, but the human brain was complex like that, it could see patterns and form habits in no time. Shock never lasted, but what followed may be worse. ”It was nothing.”

Buck felt like he was dealing with a teenager in puberty. ”I know what nothing looks like. This is not nothing.”

Eddie’s scoff was cold and annoyed. ”Could you get off my back?” He walked over to the sink and picked up a plate to make room to put his glass in it too. ”And do the damn dishes?”

Buck didn’t even try to understand how the dishes were even remotely important right now. What he should be concerned right now, was that Buck didn’t know what was stronger, his frustration or fear. ”Show me your phone."

There was a pattern here and he had to know. There were answers that the phone could provide and he just needed to know that there was an explanation for it. Somewhere here, he was sure their wires must have been crossed and this was nothing but a misunderstanding.

”What?” Eddie asked, holding the dirty plate in his hand like he had forgotten about it. ”Are you crazy?”

”Show me your phone.” Buck uncrossed his arms and walked over to the counter where Eddie’s phone lay, screen facing down, always facing down. ”Now.”

Buck reached out to pick up the phone.

The sound with, which the plate Eddie had been holding, hit the wall of the kitchen was deafening to Buck’s ears. And suddenly, the phone was forgotten and all he could do was stare at his boyfriend, his breathing quick and eyes widened in shock.

Eddie just stood there breathing just as heavily but not in fear, that was all Buck.

 _Defuse,_ his mind yelled. Defuse as if his life depended on it, that was the most important lesson he’s learned growing up. He hated that it was the only thing he could think of right now, but he couldn’t shake it off. Eddie left before Buck could do any of that, and suddenly it was like he could breathe again.

”Get your hands off my fucking shit.”

And just like that, the picture of the way he had looked after he’d punched the man in the park was right back in the front lop of Buck’s brain. The way Eddie’d breathed heavily, starred at the man and starred some more until he had visibly snapped out of it, as if he’d just gained consciousness of his body again.

Suddenly, it was the one moment. The moment when he knew that he didn’t have another choice but to think about it, because he knew the signs.

He got a broom and took care of the broken plate. Mechanical. Poured water into the sink and washed the dishes. Dried them. Put them in the cabinets. His mind was just a long white noise, until he had nothing more to do to distract himself.

“It always starts somewhere,” he whispered to himself into the silence of the kitchen. It was spotlessly clean. There was no reminder of what had just happened, it was flawless. Buck had always been good at cleaning up messes that weren’t his own. He had always been good at hiding every dirty secrets behind a spotless, flawlessly clean facade. It was easy to make sure nobody would question anything if there was no dirt to plant a seed of doubt in.

Buck starred at the spot where the plate had hit the wall. He felt as if he just needed to stare long enough, and he could see it happening frame after frame. He could see it fly, watch as it shattered, pieces flying everywhere. ”It always starts somewhere.”It wasn’t the plate that scared him, not really. Neither had the punch startled him. It was the fact that he had seen all of these steps before, he had been exactly here.

He had seen his father slowly becoming something that made Buck’s mind go white with ringing alarms and red flags.

First it’s someone who isn’t you. Maybe even someone who isn’t even _close_ to you. Then came the irritation, the secrets, the yelling. The throwing, the screaming, the blaming. The punching of the wall where your face was a second ago.

It always started somewhere. One time was a coincident. Maybe paranoia, maybe he was just trying to find mistakes in what made him feel happy because part of him still doubted he deserved happiness, right?

But Buck had ignored his fair share of “One times” in the past few months. So what, Eddie yelled now. He freaked out now. He had secrets now. It was just that one thing.

But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been just one little thing in a long while and it was time that Buck faced it head on. He liked to hide the dirty truths from people but he had to stop being one of them.

It was not okay. They were not okay. This was not going to fix itself. Buck was right back where he had run away from, all those years ago.

And just like that, he started lying again. He broke the promise he made to himself all those years ago and chose to ignore the heavy, sick feeling in the bottom of his gut.

Eddie apologised the next morning. It sounded sincere and Buck was sure that it had been. Unfortunately, that didn’t change anything. He had seen. He had watched. He had lived through it all before. Part of him was shook awake and now he couldn’t stop to see. To watch. To wait.

They didn’t fight for the whole day after that. It was nothing to be proud of, it should be the default.

Eddie yelled again the day after that. And after that. One week later, he left again in the evening and came home in the middle of the night, knuckles bloodied and black eyed. Buck asked where he had been, Eddie gave him a long explanation and an excuse this time. He said that he was just working out. Buck went to sleep on the couch that day.

”I don’t like how tired you look,” Maddie said, no warning, no talking around it. Buck blinked up at her and tried a smile he knew worked.

There was no cup of tea for him anymore. He wondered what had changed. ”Hard shift at work, I barely had time to catch a break.”

Maddie didn’t question him, but she looked at him silently for a few moments too long and that felt like a question in itself.

Eddie sneaked into the house at 3 am that night. Buck asked where he had been. Eddie grunted that he was sorry.

Chris was looking at him. He has been doing that again and again in the past few minutes. Buck looked up from the puzzle the two were doing and met his gaze. ”You good there, Bud?”

Buck picked one corner piece out of the box. Chris looked around the room and then shook his head softly. ”Why are you and Daddy always fighting?”

The piece fell out of his hand and landed face down on the floor. Rationally he knew that it had only been a matter of time until Chris just _had_ to notice something. Yet, he never wanted that day to come. He knew what it did to children to have to ask something like that. Just thinking about how long Chris has had to sit in this, too, not knowing how to say anything at all.

This was never just about Eddie and himself. He never should have been naive enough to think that he really could keep all of this from the child until it all turned back to good.

”Oh, Chris, I am sorry,” Buck chocked out, the puzzle forgotten. ”Your father is under a lot of stress lately. It makes his emotions all funny.”

He hoped that Chris wouldn’t be able to see through this lie. Or what Buck supposed was a lie, because actually he had no idea what was going on, either. But he knew how bad being lied to felt. He remembered how his mother had always shook her head and laughed. Told him that her and his father had been happily married for years, so why would he think that there was a problem now.

There was no problem. There was nothing wrong, no issue in sight, until everything got so much out of hand that his mother hadn’t been able to keep up with appearances anymore. And then she did the opposite. She was the one hiding herself away, when the truth became too obvious to try and keep Buck from seeing it. And so something else started for him. There was one thing on his mind. One mantra he told himself.

He couldn’t turn into his mother. He would never be _her_.

”But you are always sad now,” Chris said, his eyes found Buck’s again.

And well, this was not acceptable. Buck felt utterly naked and his nerves raw. He did that. He screwed up here. Chris has never been supposed to see any of that. He was too young to think that Buck always looked sad. He shouldn’t have to deal with any of that.

”Hey,” Buck said softly and put his arms around Chris’s shoulders, pulling him to his chest. ”I’m not always sad. In fact, you, little man, make me super-duper happy. I promise you that.”

Chris leaned into his touch for a few seconds before he moved out of it. ”Are you going to leave?”

Buck should have seen it coming that he couldn’t defuse this situation that easily. Chris was too smart for that. But it also made Buck realise a whole different thing all together.

He would never leave. This could turn a lot worse and he knew it probably would, but he would never leave his family. Leave Chris. He’d lose him. He wasn’t in his officially paper work, he was Eddie’s. Even if this all came raining down, Chris would go into Forster care. Buck would never see him again

”Never,” Buck said, with emphasis. Chris needed to know this. Buck wouldn’t turn into his mother. And he wouldn’t leave either. ”I am always going to be right here, you hear me?”

Chris looked up at him, searching for something and Buck let himself be analysed. When Chris finally nodded and smiled softly, there was a weight falling off of Buck’s shoulders, that made his whole body feel lighter.

And there was the mantra again. He knew better. He wouldn’t end up as shell of himself, a shadow of who he used to be. Dead eyed, passive, silent. So he did everything he could to keep being who he was. Talked like always did, acted like he would have a few months before too. As long as he didn’t change, he wouldn’t lose this. As long as he didn’t give in, his mind wouldn’t swallow him whole. He’d make sure his body wouldn’t be the only thing to get out of it alive.

Buck asked again. Eddie barely shrugged.

He didn’t even bother to start a conversation after that. Maybe because he knew it’d be in vain, or maybe because his talk with Chris has left him questioning something much more painful.

Eddie was standing by the kitchen counter the next morning, his sweats hanging low and his shirt slightly ridden up. There was a faded bruise around his hip bone. Buck wondered what lie Eddie would tell him if he asked about it.”Chris asked me if I was going to leave.” Buck said soberly instead. It was something they had to discuss and also, there as part of Buck that just needed Eddie to be shocked about it. Maybe that was the thing that would make him snap out of it, realising what was going on here. Buck just wanted to see a _reaction_.

Eddie didn’t turn around from where he was cutting an apple into slices. ”Are you?”

Buck starred at Eddie’s back. And he starred. He wished he had never said anything to begin with, but Chris had shaken something in him loose and he needed the reassurance.

Did Eddie even still love him?

He realized something that was maybe worse right afterwards. He still loved him; so much so it hurt.

He didn’t ask anymore. He didn’t want to make Eddie even angrier.


	2. Chapter 2

It didn’t turn better. But, which Buck labeled as typical case of 'Celebrate every win you can get', it didn’t get worse either. He also felt like he knew at least part of the reason behind it all now, too.

Eddie wanted to watch the world burn just so people around him could feel a glimpse of the seething hot anger that pulsed through his veins.

And while Eddie tried to figure himself out, or maybe was still in ignorance about the fact that he was trying to extinguish the fire in himself by setting fire to everything around him, Buck had something else on his mind.

A new mantra that joined his old one. _No dirt. No place to plant the seed of doubt_. As long as there was no-one who’d see, no-one who’d notice, it could still be all in his head. Maybe his mind was blowing things out of proportion, who knew? Maybe all of this reminded him of the steps his dad also went through because he still hasn’t worked through all of the trauma, right?

_No dirt._ As long as the others couldn’t see that there was anything wrong, he may also believe it. So Buck cleaned up. Locked away. Hid. _No place to plant the seed of doubt_. A little bit of doubt about how happy they really were would be enough, he knew it. As soon as the first person got even the slightest idea that something may be wrong, it would be. They would watch. They would _see._

And he seemed to be doing a good enough job at it. At hiding everything away, acting like everything was okay, but also with convincing himself that maybe it was really not that _bad_. Bad and good were opposites, there was a lot of space between them. Just because nothing felt _right_ right now, didn’t mean that it was wrong. It just was.

It was after he had spent a whole night on the couch, yet again, not being able to find even a wink of sleep, that his effort seemed to slack. Buck entertained the hope that nobody would question one bad day, but after his shift, Hen followed him into the locker room.

For a second, it was as if Buck’s brain was sent back to his 15 year old self in the school locker room after sport, where he waited to change out of his sweaty cloths until nobody was there to see the bruises colouring his body in a hard, ugly truth. Buck blinked and shook his head. The bruises his father had left have long since faded into nothing but a memory only he had, and there were no new ones.

”You can always talk to me about anything,” Hen started without prompting. Buck felt like he had been caught. Somewhere along the way he had forgotten to hide something away and she had looked. She had seen.

”Did you know that I cheated on Karen once?”

He had known that, of course he did. He narrowed his eyes at her and then nodded, not quite knowing what she was getting at. When the penny dropped, though, Buck felt his face paling and he stepped towards her desperately.

”I don’t know what you heard, but I swear I didn’t cheat on Eddie,” he said, his words too close together, morphing into one in the rush he felt to say them. ”Who said that? Hen, I swear —”

”That’s not why I told you.” She sounded so calm. Buck envied her for it, just a little.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, suddenly feeling embarrassed over how defensive he had been. And how fast he’d jumped the gun, too. ”So what’s up?”

Hen looked at him for a moment. Looked him up and down and then pulled her lips in a little sympathetic smile. Buck knew smiles like that. It was the one people shot his way when they had bad news and didn’t know how to soften the blow. The one smile reserved for the purpose of saying _We are sorry to inform you_. Buck returned her gaze and just hoped that he could take whichever kind of bad news would knock him off his feet now.

”I know what it looks like when there is something going wrong in a relationship.”

Buck blinked. That had not been what he had expected. He didn’t know if this wasn’t worse.

_No dirt,_ he thought while replying: ”We are fine.” _No place to plant the seed of doubt.  
_

Hen shook her head, smile still around her lips. ”I know that admitting that you aren’t is really hard, which is why I tell you that I already know you aren’t.”

Buck thought about the phone calls and the secrets. Yet, that Eddie was cheating was not something he thought as plausible. It had to be something else. He was sure he could figure out what it was too, if he just sat down and thought about it for long enough, but there was part of him that aways found something other to do. That stopped him from finding out a truth that they couldn’t come back from. People said not knowing was worse than the truth. Well, as far as Buck was concerned, those people just have never seen a truth ugly enough.

”Eddie isn’t cheating on me either.” He stopped himself from adding an _is he?_ to the end of his statement. It would turn the whole thing in a question too painful to ask. Too obvious to say out loud.

Hen shook her head again and looked at him silently for a while. Buck didn’t like that look at all. It was as if she was sad for him. He had promised himself that he’d never make his problems somebody else’s and yet here he was, yet again, making people around him miserable like it was his job. ”There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a relationship. Nobody has to go as far as cheating for it to not be good.”

”We are fine,” Buck repeated as if Hen had a counter and he just needed to say if for the right amount of times for her to lock it in as true.

”That’s what I was saying,” Hen said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t judge him. Actually, her face didn’t tell him much of anything but empathy. ”I know what bad times look like. No matter the cause, they all have that one look in common.”

Buck didn’t say anything to that. He could see it for what it was. Her seed of doubt has already taken roots. He didn’t know what to say to get out of this. He didn’t know if he wanted to. He felt _seen_ all of the sudden and after wishing his whole life for somebody to just take the time and see through his masks, his veneers, now that somebody actually did, he had no idea how to act.

”I know what it looks like,” Hen said again and looked deep into his eyes. Buck held her gaze, willing himself to not give in to the burn of his eyes. ”And this is pretty much it.”

_I know what it looks like_. Buck clung to her sentence, in fear or maybe desperation. Maybe even hope. He held on to it the same way he’d held on to his mantras.

The punch. The yelling. The throwing. The way he sleeps on the couch now. Chris’s questions. Eddie’s resignation. Eddie’s anger. His father’s anger. Buck’s constant need to hide. The cleaning. The flawlessness of his masks.

But Hen knows. She’s seen it all before, and she had watched, categorised, calculated, drawn a conclusion. She had seen.

”I am just having a bad day, Hen.” He tried to somehow turn this around, feeling like he was bucketing water out of a sinking ship. It was too late.

”That’s not what I meant,” she said slowly, something close to pity in her voice. Not necessarily because of whatever was wrong that she couldn’t quite figure out yet, but about how he thought he could single handily paint their entire world in a color that would convince people of how okay he was.

”So what do you mean?” He asked, feeling out of breath as if he had just finished sprinting a mile. 

Hen took his hand in hers and squeezed it. ”There is something about being squeaky clean, you know?”

Buck raised his eyebrows at her. He didn’t know what to say. It was too late, she knew. He’d failed.

”I’m not worried that you have a bad day. I am worried that it seems to be the first time in months that you aren’t 100% happy and content. Sometimes it’s the flawless facade that tells you more than actual words.”

Buck opened his mouth to say _But we are fine._ It was right there on the tip of his tongue, waiting to stand in the air between them, just like the knowledge that neither of them believed it, but he never dared to actually say it out loud. There was no-one here who he could convince with his words, as much as he wished he could. But then another thought entering his mind.

Maybe, just for once, he could stop to run. Stop to hide. She’d found him, but that didn’t mean that everything was going to be out in the open now. Maybe it just meant that he was not alone. Maybe he just _shouldn’t_ always try to face the world fighting alone.

”Thank you,” he settled on instead. For watching out for him or for her lack of judgment or something else all together, he didn’t know, but it suddenly felt like the most important thing to say.

Hen nodded at him and squeezed his shoulder. ”Whenever you need me, I am right here.”

”Thank you.”

Hen didn’t bring it up again, waiting for him to come to her. He waited. He didn’t quite know for what but he was convinced that he would know once it was time. It made him more aware of everything, though.

That was also when the excuses started. The justifications. The assumptions.

”I was just angry,” Eddie said softly, his hand just barely brushing over Buck’s cheek. Buck only nodded at him, leaning into the touch. He knew that Eddie was _just mad._ It was the whole problem.

”You know that I am sorry, right?” Buck heard that one before. He knew how one had to answer to it. He knew what the right words were. He knew how to deescalate situations. He pulled a careful smile on his lips, crafted well, all those years ago when it hadn’t been something being thrown close to his face anymore. When it hadn’t been just yelling anymore. The first time his father actually hit him. ”Of course.”

”I can change,” Eddie promised, voice slightly above a whisper in the rare moments in which he actually also seemed to finally open his eyes and see that there _was_ something that he needed to change. Buck bit his tongue silently, not knowing how to explain that he believed him that in a second. Sadly he already had proven that he could change. It just wasn’t for the better. It rarely was.

”You know I’d never hurt you,” Eddie whispered into Buck’s hair at night. He nodded softly against Eddie’s chest.

”I know,” he answered. He sounded convinced and the bigger part of him really was. There was a line Eddie wouldn’t cross. Buck _knew_.

It was a warm day, the sun shinning relentlessly into his eyes. Buck sat down on a bench in the park together with Eddie, enjoying the at least a bit cooler hours of the late afternoon. Buck watched Chris for a minute longer, who was running around with two of his friends on the grass, until he closed his eyes and rested his head against Eddie’s shoulder, who chuckled softly and put his arm around him.

”If the weather stays that way, we’ll be sweating our asses off in our turnouts tomorrow,” Buck said his voice muffled by the fabric of Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie laughed and turned his head to press a lingering kiss to Buck’s forehead. There was something in Buck that was trying to burn that soft touch into his long term memory. He had to hold on to these moments, they were the only thing helping him through those that weren’t that good.

”We run into fires,” Eddie answered, smile in his voice. ”It doesn’t really get hotter than that.”

Buck sat up to face Eddie and winked teasingly at his boyfriend. ”Oh, I see something that is plenty hotter.”

Eddie shook his head in amusement and playfully shoved Buck’s face away with an open palm. ”Cheeseball.”

Buck put his head back on Eddie’s shoulder, still giggling. ”You love me,” he said before he could overthink it and immediately was filled with cold regret. He shouldn’t have said it. There was a danger there, too much on the line. It was a statement just too easily deniable right now. It used to be an established fact that Buck hadn’t even questioned anymore, just a few months ago. But the world kept turning, a few months could be a long time, if they just wanted to be. There was a lot of potential for things to change.

To his relief, Eddie just hummed in what Buck interpreted as agreement. And, oh, how he hoped it was agreement.

They were silent for a little while after that. Buck was trying to get his heartbeat under control, trying to convince himself even if he just read agreement in Eddie’s hum because he was desperately searching for it, he hadn’t denied it either. He could have but didn’t. And Buck knew better than to let little wins go uncelebrated.

_See Hen?_ He thought, knowing that it was nothing he should be proud of. _Who looks unhappy now?_

He ignored the part of him that saw the irony in it. Because he knew better. He knew that it was still him. One good moment didn’t make up for 50 bad ones, but all he had was hope.

It was Eddie who broke the peaceful silence. Silences have never been their problem, though. It was the yelling, the screaming, the moments between the silence that worried him.

”His scrapes healed fast,” Eddie observed. Chris had fallen off of a skateboard a few weeks ago. Buck had been nowhere near the school or the skateboard or anything with any connection to the accident at all, but Eddie had yelled at him as if he was to blame. By the end of it, he nearly was convinced himself that somehow it had been his fault.

Buck nodded but didn’t say anything else to that, he knew that it was one of those topics. There were things he’s learned to avoid to talk about in order to keep the peace. 

He moved his head slightly to press a kiss to Eddie’s neck and then smiled softly in his skin. There was nothing perfect about this. Not even the slightest bit, but right now, he got to have this.

And they were happy for the whole afternoon they spent outside. They all laughed together during dinner. Buck and Eddie tucked Chris into his bed together later.

The bedroom door didn’t slam loudly but was closed with more force than strictly necessary. Buck looked up from where he was sitting on the bed, trying to find matching ones in the pile of black socks that laid out in front of him. Eddie stood frozen right in front of the door and all Buck’s brain supplied was the word _trapped._ He was trapped.

He put the socks in his hands down passively, they were already the last thing on his mind.

”I can’t believe he really actually wanted to ride the skateboard,” Eddie breathed out, his forefinger tapping his thumb as if he was trembling but Buck knew that it was a mechanism he used to calm himself down. Not that it seemed to have worked.

Buck said nothing. It didn’t matter. He could say everything on his mind or nothing at all and Eddie would use it to built his anger. As if every syllable Buck kept himself from answering or dared to voice was just another stone in the sheer wall of force that was Eddie when he was mad.

”This could have ended so much worse,” Eddie went on. Buck sat still, not daring to move a muscle. Normally he would have gotten up and put a hand between Eddie’s shoulder blades but now it felt like that was not the level of caution he needed. He felt like that might just end up to be the final straw. Eddie may actually take a swing at him if Buck only touched him first. He swallowed heavily.

”He should have known better,” Eddie said, his fingers moving faster. ”What am I supposed to do now? Tell him to keep trying but at the same time that he shouldn’t because he can’t?

Eddie was breathing heavier. Buck looked to the socks next to him on the bed shortly. That they have ever been something he’d been concerned about as if it mattered if they were the exact same shade of black.

”That is bullshit!” Eddie yelled and shook his head. ”Absolute senseless bullshit.”

Buck looked back at his boyfriend about to open his mouth. The _Have you tried_ already on his lips, but he swallowed the words before he could say them. There was no point to it. Eddie didn’t listen to him anyway. This stopped being a conversation long ago.

Buck didn’t know if that really was the reason for it all, but he felt like his roles in Eddie’s life had shifted. Eddie didn’t come to him for support or suggestions. He didn’t complain and vent in order to find a way out. He just did it because he needed somebody to blame. Somebody to let his anger out on.

Buck was no longer his help. He was his scape goat.

He looked away for another second. There was one sock that had the same dark blue shade as another one he’d just seen. He extended his arm to search through the pile when Eddie spoke up again.

”Are you even listening to me?” Eddie yelled loudly, slapped the top of the dresser with a flat hand and Buck couldn’t help it. He jumped.

And that was when he realised something else all together. In retrospect, he wouldn’t say the whole extend of it really settled into his brain and deep into his bones with the first time Eddie yelled. Or even the first time he broke something. For Buck it began to really sink in, with first time he flinched because of it. And just like that, he knew. This really was something that would not get better but worse. Always worse.

Eddie’s face paled and suddenly, the anger was gone from his features as if it had never been there to begin with. He walked up to Buck with raised hands and furrowed eyebrows. He looked actually confused over what had just happened.

Buck wasn’t confused, though. He may have hidden it away so well even he himself hadn’t really found it anymore, but still, part of him had always known. He had been there before and that was just how it went.

”You know I’d never hurt you, right?” Eddie said, voice so soft, being its own polar opposite of the way it had been loud and hard just a second ago.

Buck smiled at him, not leaning back when Eddie carefully put his hand on Buck’s cheek, a featherlight touch.

”I know,” he lied.

And just with that, it wasn’t just an afterthought anymore. Not something that may just be paranoia, or leftover trauma from his childhood. Just like that, he found himself, subconsciously or not, label everything as dangerous. Everything has suddenly become a Fight or Flight situation. It didn’t come with the first time Eddie yelled or when he had hit the guy. It was when Buck felt himself flinch away from Eddie because _who knows_. How sure was he really about how safe he was around Eddie?

Buck washed the dishes, not even let them soak a bit first. There was a thought now that echoed louder than his mantras. _What would the final straw be?_ What did he have to do, to say, to _not_ say for Eddie to lose the last bit of his restrained? Or maybe he’d do it all on his own.

Buck knew that Maddie had noticed. Maybe she didn’t quite know yet what she noticed but she had. Yet, it surprised him when she decided to talk to him about it again. He didn’t know why, but he had just assumed that everybody around him would just agree to pretend until Eddie and him were so okay again that there was nothing to pretend.

He only realised in retrospect that it was also because, while he spend all his days super aware of what Eddie was doing and what he _could_ do, it was just his life now.

28 days. A person needed 28 days to form a routine, to get used to new patterns, to make something a part of their day. He had already pretended for much longer than that. And just sometimes, whenever he sat in silence, waiting for something he didn’t need even a tat of fantasy to imagine, his memory providing enough to fill in, he wondered if this was just a new habit for him now. He’s spent months pretending, making excuses, living like this.

Living in silence about it all.

”I’m worried,” Maddie said on the about 256th day. Buck looked up from his cup of tea to which he held on like a lifeline. It felt as if he just needed to believe enough and it would somehow fix everything that had gone wrong. Was still going wrong.

Buck raised his eyebrows at her, feeling kind of stupid. ”What? About what?”

He hadn’t done anything too dangerous at work. Not more than what his job asked of himanyway. He had said nothing. He kept everything clean.

He should have known, though, that Maddie could see through it. She had seen him hide the messes once before. She had hidden more than enough herself. In retrospect, really, it shouldn’t surprise him at all.

”About you,” she answered. Buck wished he was as good at communicating as she was. He’d have stumbled over the syllables, forgot their meaning halfway through. She didn’t even blink when saying that even though it could change everything.

”I’m okay,” Buck said, lie rolling off of his tongue so easily it nearly felt like he was telling the truth. He’s had more than enough days to make it a habit, after all. Selling lies so well crafted, nobody would even think of taking a closer look.

”A few months ago, you said that Eddie and you were fighting a lot.” Maddie paused shortly. It reminded Buck of the way she had practice for presentations she’d had to do for school. She always stood in front of the couch, index cards in her hands, smile on her lips. She had taken little notes on her cards where she would need to pause for her speech to make the most impact. Had written down little X’s and question marks to indicate the pauses or where she’d ask the class questions

Buck knew a question mark when he saw it. ”Yeah, that was months ago.”

Maddie never broke eye contact but nodded shortly. ”And I knew you would be okay then, do you know why?”

He took a sip of his tea, kept it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. Then he shook his head. He felt like he needed to dish out an excuse, an explanation, maybe an accusation filled with disbelief, but part of him knew that sometimes, silence was key. Too much defence would just give him away. Even if he began to forget what he was even hiding from.

”You talked about it with me,” Maddie answered her own question, a crossed our question mark. Her eyes softened before she began to speak again. "But you don’t anymore. And I hoped you didn’t because there was nothing to talk about but that can’t be it.” Pause. ”It’s because it got worse, didn’t it?” Question Mark.

This was a speech, alright, and Maddie always knew what she was aiming for. She wasn’t here to get B’s.

”Maddie,” Buck said, nothing more. There was no excuse he could sell here. She was not here to believe lies and he knew it. He knew the look on her face. He knew when he lost. He put his tea down.

Maddie leaned forward and took his hands in hers. She used to do the same thing when they were kids and Buck didn’t quite know yet how devastated his words _I just feel like, why? How? Is being alive really worth all this? w_ ere to hear for her.

”You stopped taking about it,” she repeated. Her cards used to have a little infinity sign next to the sentences she needed to stress or repeat to show their importance. ”Because even you couldn’t find an excuse for it all, could you?”

Buck looked into her eyes, feeling nothing if not completely stripped of his defence walls. There was nothing shielding him away anymore. Nothing to keep it all out of sight. ”Maddie,” he repeated. He didn’t know what else to say.

Maddie squeezed his hands, her eyes looking distinctly teary. She’d always treated his pain like her own personal shortcomings and Buck hated it. "I know what it looks like. I’ve seen it when Dad freaked out. I saw it when I was a nurse. I saw it in the mirror when I was with Doug. And —”

There was no written pause here. She bit her lip for a second as one tear rolled from her eye and down her cheek. Neither of them moved to brush it away. It was out there. She sniffed before continuing. ”And I see it now when I look at you.”

Buck raised his eyebrows and then tucked a careful, tiny smile around the corners of his mouth. ”There is nothing to see,” he all but whispered, at this point probably just for himself, maybe he would be the one person he could still convince.

She is smarter than to believe it, but he knew that. "I also know what it sounds like. Do you think I have never tried to sell excuses before? Buck—”

”He never laid a hand on me,” Buck interrupted her, pulling his hands out of her grip. She had to understand that he also knew what it all looked like but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t.

”Well, I would hope not,” Maddie bit out, a lot more forceful than all of her other words. She took a deep breath and then fixed him with another soft glance. ”Abuse doesn’t have to be physical.”

Buck wished he could shake his head and disagree without sounding completely naive. He knew that it didn’t _have_ to be physical abuse to be a toxic relationship but he felt like this would have to be. Right now, he could still make himself believe that at least, he has had worse before. This wasn’t half bad considering he spent his childhood waiting for the one punch that would be too much for his body to handle

”I am handling it. Please, Maddie, he is my best friend. He is more than that. Please give me time to fix it,” Buck said, well aware he was begging. This stopped being about him long ago. This was about his family and what he was about to lose.

  
Maddie shook her head minutely, her eyebrows drawn together. Buck felt her sadness like a third presence in the room. ”Why are you always the one who needs to do the fixing?”

He had no idea. Buck scratched his head and looked away. ”I can’t leave, Maddie.”

”There is always a way.”

”No, you don’t get it.” Buck turned back to look at her with wide eyes. ”He is my family. My best friend. He’s _it_ for me.”

Eddie is the best thing that has ever happened to him and he was not stupid enough to let this go. He knew that he won here. Eddie was everything he’s ever thought he’d never be good enough for. So what, they had a rough patch right now? So what, he saw the signs and steps and knew where they were heading? So what, he flinched around him now? He’s had worse. He’s had so much worse and only with Eddie has he ever been so happy that he forget that he’s ever had it worse.

Maddie looked at him for a long moment in silence. Then she shot another little smile his way. It looked nothing but sad yet again, because of course it did. All her smiles looked so sad in the past few months. ”You really think you are the only person who has ever been in love?”

Buck had known that it could all get worse. He had seen worse before and he knew. He knew that right now, he was still lucky. At least, that was what he told himself.

”Jesus, do you ever stop complaining?” Eddie bit out and Buck immediately looked up from his plate.

And it did get worse.

”You are getting on my nerves, what is your issue?” Eddie continued while Buck just stood there and looked at him. He had stopped answering a long time ago. Eddie didn’t really want a conversation anyway and else, all he did was get mad and ignore Buck’s questions.

Buck swallowed and looked away for a second to see if the others might have just missed the change in tone. Hen, Chimney and Bobby all already sat at the table, talking to each other. Buck returned his gaze to Eddie whose eyes were narrowed, breath slightly quickened, light flush spreading on his cheek bones.

Eddie was mad again. Of course he was.

”I am just saying,” Buck said quietly after Eddie’s been silent for a moment, waiting. He was still figuring out how to effectively deescalate when Eddie got really mad, but he needed to fix this _right now._ The others could only be distracted for so long.

_No dirt. No place to plant the seed of doubt._ Hen was already noticing. This would be the final piece of the puzzle, the one last evidence she needed.

”Oh, I heard you,” Eddie interrupted him and threw his hands up. Buck didn’t flinch this time but he felt that he nearly would have. It was an instinct caught and stopped, when there should have never been reason to have to stop anything to begin with. ”Why would it be so bad if Lena stayed with us for the weekend?”

It had taken four months and asking 34 times in total for Eddie to admit that he was texting with another firefighter whenever he didn’t want Buck to see his messages. Buck had met Lena in passing and while she also definitely had a little bit of a temper and should maybe work on managing that, she was nice enough. She knew what she wanted and didn’t let anyone stop her and Buck could appreciate that.

Lena was not the problem.

The problem was who Eddie was when he was around her or immediately after meeting her. It was the always when Buck was the most scared. Not necessarily of Eddie and what he could do but the fact that Buck had actually caught himself thinking that _that_ Eddie was actually a person he could grow to fear.And he hated the way it made him feel. Like he was in a constant battle with himself because the other fact, that was always undeniable true, was that he loved Eddie.

He loved him so much and he didn’t want a reason to be constantly scared of him.

”I don’t think it would be a good idea for her to stay, that’s all. I think it would make me uncomfortable.” Buck said defensibly, talking quick and silently. I Think This and I Think That, even though he knew for it all for a fact, but that way his words wouldn’t sound too strong, too aggressive. Deescalate. Always deescalate. 

Eddie breathed out harshly. ”That is not a reason.”

Buck starred at him for a moment silently. _It should be the only reason you need_ , he didn’t say. His comfort stopped being a reason for or against anything a long time ago.

He didn’t answer but only kept looking at Eddie. Maybe, if he kept being silent, Eddie would too and they would get away with this. They would definitely argue about it later, but in the safety of the privacy of their house. _No dirt._

”What?” Eddie bit out and cracked the bones of his fingers in his left hand. There were bruises littered all over his knuckles. Buck had stopped asking about these bruises months ago. Eddie didn’t answer anyway and part of Buck was glad that he didn’t know who it was that Eddie punched. Who the person was that Eddie hit instead of him. How long it would take until it wasn’t the other person anymore.

”What?” Buck asked back and immediately knew that he shouldn’t have. But it was a genuine question. Eddie was about to decide that Lena could stay anyways and there was nothing Buck could really do about it. He didn’t know why Eddie had even pretended that there was a choice to begin with.

Eddie scoffed and threw the spatula he’d used to scramble eggs, into the pan in front of him. ”What, you can’t think of a good reason and I just have to accept that?”

Buck shrugged carefully and leaned over to take the plastic spatula out of the hot pan. ”I think I just need a little time off this weekend.”

He needed time to calm down. He had a lot of messes to clean up and he needed time to fix things and he couldn’t do that when Lena was around bringing out the worst in Eddie without ever meaning to.

It was the wrong thing to say. Buck knew it immediately when he saw Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up on his forehead.

”Excuse me,” he bit out and put his hands flat next to the stove on the counter, slightly leaning towards Buck. ”You need time to _relax_? That is way Lena can’t stay?”

Buck shook his head, eyes fixed on Eddie’s hands. When he was young, he saw the same bruises on his fathers hand after he had hit Buck for losing the $20 he had given him to go and get groceries. Buck wondered if Eddie’s punches would hurt less or more than that. He was older now, he could take more. But this was _Eddie_.

”Yeah?” Eddie continued, his voice sounding nothing if not condescending. ”You wanna know who also needs a break?”

That was too loud. Buck didn’t even need to look up to know that the others have heard it. He felt their eyes burn questioning holes into his side and he hated it. He needed to fix things but everybody was here.

Eddie didn’t keep it behind closed doors anymore. _No dirt. No place to plant the seed of doubt._ Buck was breaking his back to clean up everything, but Eddie didn’t seem to see it. Didn’t seem to get how important that was.

”I need a fucking break too,” Eddie yelled and leaned further into his direction. Buck backed off slightly. _They all can see it,_ he thought panically instead of answering. ”You are so exhausting, you know?”

Eddie looked at him for a moment longer, eyes narrowed and ice cold, cutting. Buck felt himself shrink beneath his gaze but before he could say anything to defend himself, Eddie turned and walked away, down the stairs and out of sight.

”Wow,” Buck heard Chimney say from the table. He took a deep breath before daring to look at them all. Bobby looked thoughtful, Chimney seemed honestly shocked and confused, but Hen’s expression was what made Buck realise just how much he’d just screwed up. She didn’t look like she had any questions. She wasn’t surprised. Of course she wasn’t, she’d already seen it.

Buck shook his head in their direction and tried to laugh it off. His laugh was all but too shrill and a bit too loud, but it was all he could do. It was too late, he knew it. They had seen. The doubt was setting roods. They had seen, they knew now that they had something to look for and there was no hiding from their searching eyes. They saw and they would see. They all would see.

It would only be a matter of days before they were going to put it all together and just like that all of them would know. They all would know that yet again, Buck had managed to get himself into a situation like that. Yet again, he had somehow manage to lose all of what had made him the happiest he’d ever been.

The blaring alarm was the only thing saving him from all the question he didn’t know the excuses and lies for.

Nobody mentioned anything about their fight for the entire shift, but Buck felt their gazes on him. He was probably just imagining most of them but still, he felt different now. He felt laid open and raw and he hated it.

He could deal with hiding things. He could deal with taking cover behind a wall of flawlessness. But he hated being the one who people just _wondered_ about. They didn’t need to actually know what was going on or what may be the problem, for Buck to feel like he’d been caught. It was enough that they are thinking about it. They all had watched Eddie yell at him and they all formed opinions about it and Buck hated it. There was too much damage.

When Buck was younger, his psychology teacher had asked the class to discuss the question of blame. Buck hadn’t quite understood why that was even something worth discussing. It was such a huge topic and in the end, all that mattered was who actually felt the most guilty. He always felt like he had to hide his father’s messes and make sure that nobody would as much as want to begin to question something. His father never seemed to care about that. Or maybe he just knew that Buck would take care of it.

It was never about if it really was his fault or if his father had just lost the grip on his temper. Buck was always convinced that it was his duty to make sure that nobody would know.

He’d raised his hand in class that day. _Finding somebody to blame is never part of finding a solution_ , he’d said. He’d read it a few months back and it stuck with him. His father often got mad about things that he’d convinced himself were Buck’s fault. Things that didn’t even need somebody to blame it on.

_You see, Evan? You make me so angry. It’s just who you are. The way you act. How is it my fault that I react?_ Buck had looked at his father when he said it, the eye that the punch had landed on throbbing. Buck remembered thinking that maybe his father was right. Maybe he had been the one to cause all of it.

And so it all taught him something else all together. If the people around treated a problem as such, he’d eventually come to believe that it really was him who caused it. And he’d accepted it. He’s long since learned to apologise for things that he had no control over.

It was a habit he never seemed to be able to kick.

Or so it seemed until he walked out of the fire station and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He’s had quite a few messages from Maddie and he knew immediately why that was.

Chimney had been there. He listened, he watched, he _saw._

And just like that, there was a new defiance in Buck. Just a low feeling, building in his stomach, filling him with a bitter warmth. And maybe that warmth was what made the difference in the end.

When he got home, Eddie was already out again. Buck washed the dishes, ignored more of Maddie’s texts, put fresh sheets on all of their beds, which he liked to do whenever Chris was at a sleepover. He kept his hands busy and his mind filled with nothing but white noise.

Eddie walked through the door at 3 in the morning and Buck didn’t even try and act like he hadn’t waited for him. There was a little bruise on one of his cheekbones and the knuckles of his right hand were bleeding through a bandage that looked like it had been wrapped around the wound in a hurry.

”Where have you been?” Buck dared to ask for the first time in weeks.

Eddie frowned at him and shrugged. It wasn’t even the lack of answer that surprised Buck. It was the fact that Eddie looked so confused at the question. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Eddie should not be bewildered that Buck was actually staring a conversation with him again about one of the topic he’d carefully labelled as things to avoid.

”Eddie?” Buck asked again. He felt courageous.

”Out,” Eddie grumbled out and walked to the fridge. ”Get off my back.”

Buck gaped at his boyfriend’s back. Eddie had been there. He’d been at the station and yelled at Buck. He’d seen that all their friends had noticed and yet, he still had the nerve to act like his biggest problem was Buck’s interest in his life.

Buck bit his lip. He knew what that warmth in the pit of his stomach was. He was also growing mad and he hated it. He was not an angry person. His father was angry but he wasn’t his father just as much as he wouldn’t turn into his mother.

There was also part of him that knew that he was not like his father, angry or not. There was justification in his irritation that his father and also Eddie didn’t even try to find anymore. 

”Is that all you have to say?” Buck asked quietly. He shouldn’t feel so brave for saying that. He should not have to take all of his strength to talk to his boyfriend. This all was _wrong_. Buck swallowed against the lump in his throat. When had all their happiness turned into _this_.

Eddie turned around and closed the fridge with a little slam. ”Obviously,” he drew out. Buck felt like it was supposed to be a challenge. A needlessly cruel one but a challenge nonetheless. ”What is going on with you right now?”

_What has been going on with you for the past year?_ Buck didn’t ask. He wondered what Eddie would do if he did say it out loud. If that would be the last wrong thing for him to say. He wondered if Eddie would hit him and if Buck would feel the need to apologise for that too. As if he could have somehow prevented it from happening if he’d just tried harder.

”I wanted to talk about what happened at the station today,” Buck said instead of giving Eddie’s anger more reason to burn. He didn’t need to give him more fuel for it.

Eddie frowned again and crossed his arms over his chest. He was more annoyed than mad, Buck realised and it made his hands shake in the effort of holding back a scream. How could Eddie act like this had nothing to do with him?

”What about it?” He asked like there was nothing on earth less interesting than this conversation.

Buck blew out a breath and began to tap the kitchen counter with his fingers. It was as if Eddie had forgotten what a normal conversation was supposed to be like.

_And he called me_ exhausting? Buck thought bitterly. The insult had found its space in his head next to all the other things Eddie said when he was angry but it still felt different. It was a way to blame it all on him and suddenly, Buck had a problem with that. He’d spent all his life cleaning up messes that weren’t his, protecting people who were endangering him, but where were his apologies? Where was the gratefulness? Why was there never a point when he’d just done enough instead of getting blamed for more messes, more things to keep clean?

”They all listened to us,” Buck said slowly, already knowing that Eddie wouldn’t see the point Buck was trying to make. After all it had never been Eddie’s job to clean up. He’d never worried about _dirt_ before.

”Why would that be a problem?” Eddie shrugged and scoffed. ”Couples fight.”

Buck felt the corners of his mouth rising just the tiniest bit, an ugly, sad smile forming around his lips. The same smile Maddie shot his way whenever he said he was fine and okay and _never better, thank you._ The smile you smiled when you knew the sad truth that the person in front of you might not even fully grasp yet.

”We stopped fighting long ago,” Buck said softly. There was no heat or anger behind it, it was just a fact. A fact he thought he could hide for a little while longer but it was out there now and Eddie needed to see it all for what it was.

”We fight all the time,” Eddie answered slowly as if he was convinced that Buck had somehow managed to miss all of their arguments.

The smile didn’t leave Buck’s lips. He shook his head softly. ”No, Eddie.” He stopped tapping his fingers and instead focused his whole attention on his boyfriend. ”You argue. You yell. I just listen.”

Eddie scoffed again and stepped one step towards him. ”Oh?” He asked, his voice void of emotions and ice cold. Buck shouldn’t be surprised by that reaction, but he still found that part of him was. Even though he knew that Eddie was all but an active minefield right now, he never seemed to quite expect it.

Eddie came another step closer. Buck did not step back. ”Is this how it is?” Eddie’s voice was slightly raised, growing louder towards the end of his sentence. ”I am the bad guy here? I just attack you for no reason, is that it?”

Buck didn’t interrupt him to say that he’s never said that. That was all Eddie.

”I am under a lot of pressure, Buck,” Eddie continued. Buck felt the warmth in his stomach grow cold and hot and looked down to see that his hands started shaking again. ”What, we argue about a few things and suddenly, I am the problem? You are _searching_ for something to be wrong, you are reaching every straw you can get. Maybe it’s not me? Maybe you just cause problems and then you act like I am at fault for getting mad. _Exhausting._ People around you are angry, you realise someth-”

”Shut up!” Buck yelled, breathing heavily.

Eddie closed his mouth and looked at him dumbfounded. Buck felt the same way. He hadn’t planned on yelling but he felt like he had to either say something or implode right there. His breathing was quick, heart racing.

It was too much. _You see, Evan?_ His father’s voice rang through his head, mixing with Eddie’s until it was his boyfriend saying it with him. _You make me so angry._

_Exhausting_

_It’s just who you are. The way you act._

_Maybe you just cause problems._

_How is it my fault that I react?_

_Exhausting. Exhausting. Exhausting_ _._

”Shut up,” he repeated even though Eddie hadn’t said anything. ”You know what? I am also stressed, Eddie! I am also angry.” He breathed heavily and then found himself growing at his own words. ”I am also _done._ ”

Eddie gaped at him silently.

Buck was the one scoffing that time. ”And if you wanna hit me for that, go right ahead, okay? Cause I am so done standing around and waiting to finally screw up enough. I am _tired,_ Eddie.”

Eddie just starred at him like he’s seen him for the first time and said nothing. His silence had been a long time coming.

“Hm?” Buck pushed. Part of him just didn’t care anymore. He just wanted a reaction, a recognition, anything. He wanted to be seen in a way he’d never wanted to before. He wanted Eddie to notice what had been going on for him in all this time. ”Not so big in words now? Just think. Did I leave a dirty plate in the sink? My socks on the floor? An empty milk carton in the fridge? Huh? Then yell at me some more, punch me and get it over with but know that I know.”

Eddie didn’t move an inch. Buck shook his head and continued. ”I am e _xhausting_? Yes? I am _exhausted_ , Eddie. I am not your scape goat. It’s not my fault that you’re angry. It’s not my job to take all of your anger. I am not supposed to just be here to get yelled at.”

Buck looked from Eddie’s left eye to his right, waiting for _anything_ actually. When Eddie stayed silent, Buck felt his shoulders sink, his body slightly falling in on itself. ”I am done,” he repeated. But there was no bite behind it now. There was no fight left in him.

The silence stretched for another minute. And another one. Buck kept looking at Eddie’s face for any clue of what he was thinking. Eddie just starred right back at him, and then down to his hands and back to Buck.

Maybe it was a good sign, Buck found himself thinking. Maybe Eddie didn’t say anything because his mind was too busy finally seeing it all from an angle that wasn’t biased by concern for nothing but himself and the anger that he couldn’t keep bottled up anymore. Maybe though, was that just lucky thinking. Maybe this was the first step back to the silent anger that had started it all, which felt like it was years ago.

Buck looked away and to his phone. Maddie had texted him again. ”I’ll be staying with Maddie,” Buck said before he could talk himself out of it.

Eddie barely moved, he just blinked at Buck in something which he hoped was a sign that he’s listened to him.

He looked at him for a second longer and then turned and went to get some cloths from upstairs to change into later.

He swung his bag over his shoulder and didn’t look back until he was at the front door. Eddie stood at the end of the hallway, in the doorway of the kitchen and starred at him. His eyes looked suspiciously shiny in the yellow light of their overhead lighting, but Buck didn’t want to read too much into it.

Eddie waited until Buck had already stepped out of the house. ”I’m sorry,” he whispered, maybe hoping Buck wouldn’t hear him at all.

Buck only minutely looked over his shoulder in acknowledgment. He didn’t doubt it, actually. He knew that Eddie was probably sorry. His father was also always sorry, right afterwards. Not sorry enough to stop, though. ”I know,” Buck said back and left.

Maddie didn’t ask. She pulled him into a hug and then shooed him to the kitchen to help her bake more cinnamon rolls.

”You will be happy again,” she said, never looking up from where she mixed brown sugar and cinnamon together.

Buck didn’t look at her either, keeping his eyes on the butter melting in the microwave. He thought of the way Chris laughed with him. He thought about Eddie’s messybed head. He thought about the movie nights and the cooking together. He thought about date nights and parent teacher conferences. He thought about how he wasn’t ready to let it all go. ”Of course.”

When Buck came into work 2 days later, Eddie was just leaving Bobby’s office. He wasn’t in his uniform but normal day to day cloths. Buck didn’t know if he was supposed to greet him or say nothing at all. There was so much unsaid between them but he didn’t know what the first phoneme between them should be.

Eddie took that decision from him as he walked towards Buck, face determined but open in a way it hadn’t been in a long while. As if he was thinking more clearly again, paying every last bit of his attention to the world around him. He walked towards Buck slowly, hands just slightly raised in defence.

”Buck,” he said as he came to stand a few feet away from him.

”Hey,” Buck said back after a beat, for a second forgetting how to speak. Eddie tried a little smile but then shook his head quickly at himself. He pointed towards the empty locker room.

”Can we talk?” He asked hopefully. Buck thought about denying for a second, he needed a clear head for work but he noticed quickly enough that if they didn’t talk now, it would be all he could thinking about.

He began to walk towards the room, listening to Eddie’s steps behind him. He still kept his distance.

”I’m suspended,” Eddie said after closing the door behind him. He sounded calm. Buck raised his eyebrows.  
  
”Why?” He asked surprised, trying to find out what exactly had been enough to bench him. Before Eddie could answer, the penny dropped. ”The bruises,” he added quickly, looking at Eddie for confirmation.

Eddie looked down to his bandaged hands and then nodded minutely. ”Yes,” he said and took a deep breath, as if in preparation for his next words. ”I —”

Buck just looked at him, giving him time to find his words without pressuring him. He doubted that Eddie would get mad right now, even if he pushed, but there was part of him who didn’t want to test that theory.

Eddie swallowed, and rubbed with his left hand over the bruises on his right one. ”Lena showed me street fighting.”

Buck gaped at Eddie, suddenly feeling like he saw an entire new side of him for the first time. ”That’s where you got the bruises from?” He asked, while part of him was sure that he could have figured that out. If he’d allowed himself to think about it more, maybe. Now that he knew, it was so obvious.

Eddie nodded, took a deep breath and shut his eyes again. ”Suddenly there was an outlet. And I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t stop.” He frowned shortly and then looked up at Buck with wide, clear eyes. ”I _can’t_ stop. But I have talked to Bobby and he suspended me for 3 months and assigned me to a therapist.”

He nodded and then just looked at Buck waiting for an answer. Buck didn’t know what he should say to that. _Street fighting_. Eddie seemed to read Buck’s hesitation for what it was. He had no idea how he’d missed that. How he didn’t find it out sooner.

”I’m not asking you to understand or to forgive me,” Eddie added, his voice quiet and slightly husky. ”I didn’t do anything to earn your forgiveness yet and I know that. But I am willing to put in the work.” Eddie’s frown deepened and then he grasped his hands together. He was nervous, anxious.

”But not just because of that,” he added hesitatingly. He had no idea what he wanted to say, Buck noticed. He just spoke his mind. ”It’s been a long time since I felt as bad as I do right now. As I did the past few months. I became so good at ignoring it and blaming it on other people, I didn’t even realise that I was worse off than I have been in years. And I owe it to Chris and you but also me, to work on it.”

”That might not fix us,” Buck said soberly. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to even think about it either but it was true and he was done with the lies. It needed to be said.

Eddie didn’t look surprised, his expression looked sad but understanding. ”I know,” he answered softy. Buck had missed his voice. Not the one yelling in anger, demanding to heard and obeyed to, but his actual voice. "I know that. And I am really proud of you for that, too. You are watching out for yourself, Buck, and I won’t ever treat that like a bad thing. Never again.”

There was a different kind of warmth spreading in his stomach now. It wasn’t anger and frustration building up. He was in love with Eddie. And maybe they would get back what they used to have, or maybe they’ll end up as just friends or nothing at all, but as of right now, Buck was content to wait and see where it would go. He nodded at Eddie and tried a careful smile that Eddie returned hesitantly.

He nodded a last time and then walked back to the door of the locker room, where he stopped for a moment. ”But Buck?” He asked over his shoulder and then turned around fully. ”I really am sorry.”

Buck didn’t quite know what to think for the days after that. Those days turned into weeks, in which he only saw Eddie in passing or when he went to spend time with Christopher.

He had too much time to think while lying on Maddie’s couch, staring at the ceiling in the dark. And there they were, doubts. Questions. Uncertainties.

He wondered what would have happened if Lena hadn’t shown Eddie the fighting to begin with. If Buck would have been the one getting beat then or if Eddie would have never gone as far as that. Whether it would have been better for him or worse.

He asked himself if there had ever been a moment in which he should have acted differently and just like that he could have prevented it all. He wondered if he should even think like that. It felt like it did whenever his thoughts drifted towards blaming his mother for things.

When he was younger, he’d often wondered why she never said anything. Why she was just standing there like she was being payed to watch her life fall apart, but the older he got, the more wrong those thoughts felt. It was never his mother’s fault. She was not to blame for how her body reacted to traumatic experiences. There should have never been such experiences to begin with.

Still, he found himself wondering. Maybe, if he had chosen a different approach. Maybe if he had chosen to fight instead of standing down. He never wanted to turn into his mother, but in his own way, he still did. He wondered if she felt like this too. If she had never meant to be this passive about it all, but it had just been her way of standing down and deescalating situations.

He found another thought in the same direction there too. Just like he never wanted to blame his mother for anything, he neither wanted to hold Maddie accountable for Doug. He never did either. But he’s found himself wondering, years ago, just how all of that has happened. It wasn’t her fault. Obviously. But there was a part of his brain which told him that she should have known better. She had seen their father, maybe she had never been at the receiving end of his angered swings, but she had seen. And Buck just always felt like she should have known better, she had seen bad people, how did she fall for it again? He understood now. He had seen the signs, re lived the steps and suddenly he had been 12 all over again and his father had just hit him for the first time. 

And there was one thought in his mind for all of that time. _”Are you going to leave?”_ Chris had asked him all those months ago. And that was when he realized that this one thought was undeniable true; he would never leave.

_”Never,”_ He had said, meaning every word and still did. _”I am always going to be right here, you hear me?”_

Buck fell into uneasy sleep. Woke up and went to work. Went to Maddie’s. Lay awake. Fell into uneasy sleep.

”Do you think he can change?” Maddie asked him after 8 weeks. It was the first time she just began to talk about it without carefully testing the waters first.

”I know he can,” Buck huffed out without humour. He’d already seen him change once, it wasn’t the question whether or not he could change _back_. It was whether or not that would ever be enough for Buck to trust him again. He shrugged and looked at his sister, hoping she would somehow be able to give him the right answer as to what to do. ”But I don’t know if I can act like it never happened.”

Maddie shook her head and put her hand on his arm comfortingly. ”Nobody expects you to do that.”

Buck knew that was a lie, because _he_ expected himself to do that. He wanted his little family back, but he didn’t know how much of it was left. ”What if it never gets back to the way it was before?”

”That doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” Maddie said and smiled a tiny little smile. ”I’m not saying he deserves another chance. But we all know Eddie. This doesn’t have to break you two if you don’t want it to. You can grow from it.”

Buck crossed his arms and sighed, trying to get his brain to finally do its job and give him the answers to all of his questions. ”Maybe we’ll be okay.”

_Maybe_ , he knew. There was a long road ahead and it may head nowhere at all. But there was at least a way, maybe.

”But just so you know, I’ll hold a grudge.” Maddie turned around and prepared two cups of tea. ”I know how happy you two were together and he is miles away from being as bad as Doug or Dad, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forgive him.”

Buck looked at his sister, a genuine smile on his lips and took one of the cups. ”Thank you, Maddie."

He wondered if it would make them stronger. He didn’t know if he liked the thought or not. This was not a good thing and it should not have good things come from it. He shouldn’t be rewarded for something that was nothing but wrong. But at the same time, now that they both have been at rock bottom, they knew what it looked like. They could come out of it and actually be prepared for anything coming their way.

But Buck didn’t know if he could ever look at the blue plates in their kitchen and not see them falling to pieces, shattering against the wall.

But there were also different memories. How they all laughed together on Chris’s birthday. How he and Eddie had been up until deep into the night, trying to bake a cake together and failing miserably. How they had to bite their lips to stop laughing too loudly and wake up Chris.

And suddenly it was really hard to see which side was worth more. Which he should listen to.

”You promised you wouldn’t leave,” Chris said, stacking one lego block on another. Buck couldn’t even believe how casual he made it sound. Like he didn’t want to risk to scare Buck off.”I’m right here,” Buck said quickly, handing Chris another blue block. The boy took it but didn’t answer for a long time. ”I’m always going to be right here,” he repeated his own words, no less true than they had been months ago.

It took nearly 3 months until Eddie asked Buck if they could talk. Buck agreed immediately. He needed to have all the information to make a decision. Or to help him make a decision in a while. He also _missed_ Eddie, he realized. He missed his best friend.

Eddie looked tired when he met Buck, hair a little messy, dark rings around his eyes. But he was calm. He smiled a smile so soft at Buck, it felt like a hug. They sat down at the kitchen table and just looked at each other for a few silent seconds.

”I have always had a big problem with anger, I guess,” Edie said then, words rushed as if he felt like he’d lose the courage to say them all if he didn’t do it right now. ”I think so, at least. It wasn’t always so obvious, but when I think about it now, I think I’ve always been a bit easier to —”

”Provoke?” Buck supplied when Eddie fell silent, trying to find the word.

Eddie looked at him, his face not as blank as it had been the last time they’ve spoken. There was sadness now. More confusion. And clear as day, written in every single one of his little wrinkles and lines on his face, was deep regret. ”That too. But I did have a handle on it. I am not aggressive.”

He paused shortly and then shook his head, a bitter sound escaping him. ”I didn’t used to be. I was just so _angry_ , it was as if everything I was angry about for all of my life and couldn’t let out, was suddenly back.”

”Why?” Buck asked softly. He knew that there probably wasn’t a logical answer to it really. There was a _potential_ reason, but there was seldom a clear explanation why sometimes, some things were just too much. Sometimes one little drop caused a whole barrel to overflow. Sometimes some things just were the final straw.

”My parents had told me to move back in with them,” Eddie said slowly and then shut his eyes. ”They said my job and raising Chris, it was all too much. And then you were gone for a few weeks because of the law suit and everything was so much to do, so much to handle and I kept on thinking, what if? What if I really couldn’t do it? What if —”

Eddie opened his eyes again, Buck didn’t even have to question this time if it was just the light or actual tears shining in Eddie’s eyes. He took a deep breath and continued. ”What if I was yet again not enough? And then suddenly, it’s been 3 years since Shannon died and she also,” he took another deep breath and wiped over his eyes quickly. ”She didn’t choose me. And Chris still wonders what made her leave and I don’t know how to tell him that it was me. And you also left, and yet again I couldn’t do anything.”

Buck thought about walking to Eddie and putting a hand on his shoulder but decided against it. ”That was never your fault,” he said instead. Of all the things that Eddie caused and messed up, this was not one he needed to add to the list.

Eddie sniffed quietly and shook his head again. He locked his eyes with Buck, they were swimming in so much sadness and pain, Buck felt his own throat close up. ”I was just so angry. I have been so angry that nobody ever just chooses _me_. I am just failing all the time and Christopher loses more and more people he loves and I don’t know.”

”I was never leaving,” Buck said, knowing it was the wrong thing to say but it was true and he had lied enough in the past few months. He had never planned on leaving before Eddie acted like it didn’t matter if he did or stayed.

”I know,” Eddie answered quietly, regret in his voice so obvious, Buck felt actually heard for the first time in months. “I tried to keep it all in. I tried to get over my own issues and keep them exactly like they were, a personal problem. But then there was the man in the parking lot and I _forgot_ to put in furlough for my own kid’s birthday? Everything was suddenly so much, everything reminded me again and again of why I was even angry.”

Eddie took a deep breath before he continued. ”I could make somebody pay for the fact that I had no control. I never had any control, I fail all the time and I can’t help it. And, something in me just snapped. Knowing that everything I held so dear would just leave. It could just be gone.”

Buck frowned and waited for Eddie to look at him again before he spoke up. ”So why trying to make me leave? Was it about control? Did you want to have control over _me_?”

”No,” Eddie shook his head and scoffed softly. Not at Buck, he noticed, but at himself. ”Or at least not at first. There was this voice in my head, telling me if —”

Eddie stopped talking and ran his hand through his hair. His eyes were more shiny again. ”No. At first, I just wanted somebody to blame. Maybe I wanted you to leave and prove me right. I don’t know. I don’t even know.” His breathing was quick. Buck knew desperation when he saw it. Eddie looked like he’d felt when he’s told him that he was _done._

_”_ But then, there was a new thought,” Eddie admitted. Voice more hesitant now, as if he knew that he shouldn’t say the words he shouldn’t ever even have thought to begin with. ”If I pushed you and you still stayed, I could be sure that you would actually stay forever, you know?” Eddie locked eyes with him again, searching. Apologising. ”It sounds so ridiculous. And then, when more weeks went by, it wasn’t even that anymore. It was that I just _could_ do that. I just could be mad. I didn’t even think about it anymore.”

”It became a habit,” Buck added silently.

Eddie nodded at him and opened his mouth to say something, right when the first tear fell from his eye and rolled down his cheek. ”I would never have hurt you,” he said, his voice husky. ”I know that’s easy to say but please, believe me. I have literally never even thought about it.”

Buck answered without pausing to think. ”I didn’t really think that either.”

The corners of Eddie’s mouth dropped into a little frown, his voice nearly too quiet to hear when he spoke up. ”Yes you did. I- I saw you flinch. I saw you flinch and spent a whole day thinking about why and then I just didn’t think about it anymore. You flinched away from me, Buck, and I didn’t even understand. I still didn’t think about what caused it. You didn’t know I wouldn’t hurt you.”

”Okay, I didn’t know,” Buck said, suddenly feeling more heated. He hated it. But there was the frustration again, the dying need to finally also push back. ”I didn’t when you started yelling all the time and hiding everything from me. I didn’t when you started throwing stuff at me. I just didn’t. How could I have known that you would never hurt me? How am I supposed to trust that right now?”

Eddie didn’t take the obvious challenge in Buck’s words. Maybe it was a test, Buck thought, not even sure about it himself.

Eddie cocked his head to the side and then shook it softly, another tear joining his first. ”You can’t know that. But maybe I can show you that I really mean it. Maybe I can fix it, somehow. If you give me the chance?”

Buck felt his own frustration leave his body with a rush, he was just tired and confused. He carefully put his hand atop of Eddie’s that was resting on the table top, shaking slightly.

”I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to fix this,” Buck said honestly. This could go either way, the end still uncertain but maybe they should both take the chances. ”We aren’t at a point where we —” Buck stopped and shrugged helpless not quite knowing where he wanted to go with his sentence.

Eddie nodded like he understood and turned his hand so Buck’s palm was resting in his and squeezed his hand lightly. ”We aren’t there yet,” he nodded, shooting a little smile at Buck. It was a nice smile in the way that it was so comforting and hopeful and understanding, that Buck felt like it was a soft reminder of how in love he was. That if, maybe, they were able to actually _get there_ it would be worth it.

”I love you,” Buck said and smiled back.

Eddie squeezed his hand again. ”I love you too.”

And maybe it would be enough. Or maybe they would never get themselves back. But for now, it was enough to be on a way to get there. Buck felt a weight lift off his shoulders, as happiness spread through him, cautiously.

Things took time, sometimes but he was sure that it was all going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!!  
> I hope you liked the ending of this story :-) I always love to read comments about what you think of it. Seeing new comments always makes me super happy hahah 
> 
> I know the ending is more hopeful than happy but I thought that would fit better!!
> 
> Also - I have the feeling that I have forgotten a note in there somewhere. I just feel like it. But I didn't see it so if you see any brackets or German Words or a Bunch of Question Marks, then that's a Nick-Thinking-Process-Note hdsfddjs please tell me where if there are any.
> 
> I'm looking forward to reading your comments :-)'  
> I hope you are healthy and feeling good. I'm sending love your way  
> \- Nick <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you! 
> 
> I hope you - enjoyed the story? I guess. Buck angst is my new jam, apparently. But in my defence, 9-1-1 established that Buck has to suffer at all times, it's the law. So. There. I'm always happy to read comments, you can't believe. 
> 
> I actually do have all of this written already. There are another 13k words just waiting to be uploaded!! 
> 
> Let me know what you think! I know it's a bit more 'dark' than my other works but I felt like it would fit and my brain wanted angst instead of doing Uni work (my other personal angst fskdhfdjks) so - here. 
> 
> Nick <3 
> 
> (The titel is from the song 'Little Lion Man' which is - actually not really the type of music I enjoy but idk. I love it. My co worker shoved one of his air pods at me one day and that song came on and next thing I know, I'm in my car singing ' I really fucked it up this time, didn't I, my deeeearrrrr? on the top of my lungs, so.) (I bet after reading this chapter you can totally NOT guess what my job is. Another tip from that job, for those of you who are still reading this (comment a fun fact of your own if you are!! haha) - When your co worker says: 'Those plates aren't hot. They are Lava!!' then don't forget that he's said that and then touch the plates. They are hot as lava indeed. Ow, dude.)


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